Hi! Ignite’s 13th season will be the best yet! Lots of great coaches, 3 practices a week which includes skills training, sports performance training (weights, agility), mental performance training, and fun travel destinations – Vegas, Spokane, Minneapolis, AAU Nationals (Orlando) or USAV Nationals (Kansas City)!

TOP FINISHES IN 2025!

• 2nd: 13 National at Stars & Stripes
• 3rd; 15 National at Fiesta MLK
• 3rd: 18 National at Fiesta MLK
• 3rd: 12 National at AZ Region NQ
• 5th: 14 National in Spokane JNQ, BRONZE in VEGAS
• 5th: 15 National at Fiesta Classic
• 5th: 16 Heat at AZ Region NQ

We are heading into Ignite’s 13th season and our fifth season at our Scottsdale facility while opening an additional location nearby that brings Ignite’s court total to 5!

WHY IGNITE?

At Ignite Volleyball Club, we’re more than just a team — we’re a family that’s focused on your athlete’s full journey. Whether your goal is to make the high school team or play in college, we offer hands-on skills training, sports performance coaching, and a dedicated college recruiting program that gets results. We’ve been the longest-running and largest club in Scottsdale (9th largest in AZ!), with over 13 seasons of success. Our athletes stick with us, and so do our coaches — because we care. From national tournaments to college offers, we give every athlete the tools to succeed at the next level. If you’re looking for a club that builds confidence, skills, and a future, Ignite is the place.

Ignite is managed by seasoned coaches, including Dana Achtzehn, Varsity Head Coach at Desert Mountain. Dana has led the Wolves to over 100 wins and was recently inducted into the DM Hall of Fame, along with his daughter Rylee, a D1 athlete who is also Ignite’s Social Media Manager and Hitting Coach. Many of our coaches have led their high school programs for 5 to 8 years and have led with integrity and heart. Make sure you know who manages the club you are looking to spend the next 8 months with… it is important! Most of our coaches have been with Ignite for several years, including Marissa McNamara who has been with Ignite over 11 years! She is our Operations Manager, Recruiting Coordinator and Head Coach for our 14 National and 18 National teams. Her 5th year she transitioned from Assistant to Head Coach at DM.

NIKE JERSEYS and lots of fun gear!!

IGNITE TRAVEL LOCATIONS: VEGAS (Red Rock Rave), Spokane (Pacific Northwest), Salt Lake City (SLC Showdown), and Minneapolis (Northern Lights). We have carefully selected the travel destinations based on distance (affordability) and access to top college coaches for recruiting. We don’t believe that going to 3+ JNQ’s is the right thing to do. Chasing bids is expensive (hotels/flights) and an unnecessary way to get your athlete recruited.

HUDL included for our most of our travel teams!

Enhanced recruiting services for those wanting to play in college! Ignite has years of college recruiting experience to help your daughter become a student-athlete post HS!

SPORTS PERFORMANCE TRAINING: Robert Branch is our in-house Sports Performance Director and has been with Ignite for several years. His dedication to training our athletes to hit harder, jump higher and stay injury free is what helps our athletes to succeed! This year we are expanding our program to include a few more trainers, including Bre Rajchel, our Head Coach for our 15 National 2 team! This year we will be testing our athletes more often to show how far they’ve come!

CERTIFIED MENTAL TOUGHNESS MINDSET TRAINING
Building on what we did last year, Ignite will meet 1-2 times a month for mental toughness and performance mindset training. Discussion topics will include growing mindset, setting performance goals and outcomes, understanding the mental and physical health, increasing grit and determination, drafting a roadmap to your future and more!

TRAIN 2 WIN PHYSICAL THERAPY: Dan Swinscoe’s Physical Therapy company is moving to our nearby second location and will be there to help with injury recovery and increased mobility! Part of our Ignite Circle of Care, our athletes will have the best opportunity to grow stronger, jump higher and recover quicker than any other club in Arizona! Ignite is in the process of creating an all inclusive program for our athletes. The best in volleyball training, sports performance, mental performance, recovery services, mental health programming with our partner – Victory Sports Counseling / Maddie McLean, and a comprehensive nutrition program coming soon!

and so much more!

It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you read and go step by step. Failure to compete each and every step will make tryouts harder for all of us. It’s important that tryouts go smoothly, so please follow directions as outlined below. 

STEP 1: CREATE USA VOLLEYBALL SPORTS ENGINE ACCOUNT

Its very important that you create a FREE Sports Engine household account in the PARENT’S NAME. This is the account where you will create your parent’s account. High School Athletes – please do not create this account in your name, it needs to be a parent – UNLESS you are 18.

USE THE LINK BELOW IN STEP 2 to CREATE YOUR ATHLETE’S MEMBERSHIPS.

Having issues with Sports Engine? Here’s a helpful guide to creating an account: Sports Engine help guide.

STEP 2: PURCHASE OR UPDATE USAV MEMBERSHIP

In order to participate in tryouts, your daughter will need to be registered with the USAV AZ Region. Not only are we required to make sure you have registered, but it’s important in case they get injured as membership with the region covers as secondary insurance. You can register here: JOIN USAV AS AN IGNITE ATHLETE. Look for the SE QUIZZARD on the right side of the web page.

There will be two payments, shown as two separate transactions. One for the National Office and one for the Arizona Region Office.

IF YOU REACH 18 BEFORE 8/31/2026, you MUST PURCHASE THIS MEMBERSHIP: “25-26 USAV Junior 18s Player – SafeSport Required”

VERY IMPORTANT: PLEASE PRINT OUT THE USAV MEMBERSHIP CARD and bring to tryouts. All paperwork is now done online at the membership level – Birth Certificate, Safe Sport, Concussion – all done while purchasing your membership – clubs no longer need to collect these!

[ REGISTER FOR USAV AS AN IGNITE ATHLETE ]

STEP 3: DETERMINE ATHLETE’S AGE GROUP

This is super important! Please make sure you do this PRIOR to making plans for tryouts. Please do not assume the age AND DO NOT assume Playmetrics will catch it correctly – the only way to determine what age group your daughter should try out for is to use the USAV AZ Regions tool.

AGE IS NOT DETERMINED BY HOW OLD THEY ARE CURRENTLY, BUT HOW OLD THEY WILL BE JULY 1ST, 2026!

However, for recruiting purposes and making sure they play the level that makes best sense for your athlete, please use the guide below. For example, if your athlete is a younger 8th grader, and the region tool shows 13’s, we would prefer her to play 14’s. Another way to look at it, is if your athlete plays 13’s this year but should have played 14’s because of her grade, then when she is a freshman in HS, she’ll have gone from playing 13’s all the way to 15’s.

CHECK AGE ON AZ REGION WEBSITE

STEP 4: REGISTER FOR IGNITE OPEN HOUSES & TRYOUTS

What to expect at Open Houses: Athletes will play on court (so come ready to play!), get to know coaches, etc. Parents can stay and attend an informational meeting with our Directors where we will talk through what to expect this season at Ignite and answer any questions.

REGISTER ABOVE!

STEP 5: ARRIVE AT TRYOUTS 30 mins BEFORE TRYOUT TIME!

Tryouts are SUPER EASY this year! NO PAPERWORK (Concussion, SafeSport) needed at time of tryouts! NO NEED TO BRING COPY OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE! ALL of this is now collected while obtaining your membership!

BRING THE FOLLOWING TO TRYOUTS!

• Register above in our Playmetrics app – this way we will be able to check you in. If you haven’t registered in PM, you’ll be asked to do so at check-in table.
• Bring a copy of your USA/AZ Region membership card.

Once you’ve checked your daughter in at the front desk (will be on the NE side of the building at the Weight Room Garage Door – big 10×10 will be outside), the tryouts are closed. This means no parents can be present during tryouts, in the lobby, etc. This is to allow your daughter to be focused during tryouts.

We will ask parents to come back 30 minutes before tryouts is over. You can wait outside near our lobby door.

Tryouts are NOT EASY FOR ANYONE – parents, athletes, coaches, and Ignite staff. We do not pick teams because of favorites, ms or hs team they play for, etc. It’s solely based on skill level, coachability and need for specific positions. So – this means that kids who might have played on a team last year may not make the same type of team this year and can mean that athletes are now with other kids who they may or may not know. This is good for them! Please help your daughter through any concerns she may have, but please don’t buy into typical conspiracy theories. Ignite is known for our integrity and honesty and does not do the things that other clubs do like make promises to athletes during evals, etc. These other clubs do that because they know parents/athletes want to know ahead of time and it means they get as many athletes into their gym as possible. Then you get there and find out the promise wasn’t true and end up on a completely different team. Don’t fall for that dishonest technique! Respect the process – we’ve had girls who’ve played on 1’s teams and then made 3’s teams, but they bounce back and make the 1’s again the next season due to their hard work and effort! All athletes will be trained the best way possible regardless of what team they make. Help them understand that we care about each and every one of our athletes!

Once a team has been chosen, an Ignite staff person will come out to announce athletes names who made that team. So it’s important that you be within range to hear and not in your car. At the same time, an invite will go out through PlayMetrics (the website you registered your daughter for tryouts). This invite is very important!! Please make sure that the parent who registered for tryouts is the same parent who is there at tryouts. Otherwise you’ll be having to jump on a call/text to make sure your partner accepts the team invite.

We will allow the parents of the kids whose names were called to come into the lobby where you will be met by the Head Coach of that team. They will talk through next steps while another Ignite staff member will call the athletes who made the team and bring them into the lobby.

IMPORTANT!: Tryouts are crazy – lots of fast moving pieces. Unfortunately this means that if you are unsure whether or not you will accept the offer and leave the lobby, it will be assumed that you are not committing and we will immediately offer up the position to another athlete. Please make plans ahead of time on what you will do if your daughter makes the team she wants or doesn’t make the team she was hoping for. This will make it a lot easier on you and your daughter.

Payment and Signature on the Contract will be required to secure a position on the team.

PAYMENTS: There are several options for you when it comes to payments. 

• CC PAYMENTS: These will be processed through Playmetrics. Once you’ve accepted the invite in PM, you can click through the steps to choose PIF or Deposit and then enter your info/CC info/etc. CC fees are added to the total.
• CHECK: Checks are accepted. Please make checks out to “Ignite Volleyball Club, LLC”. Also be sure to put your daughter’s full name and team name in the memo. This helps us match payments to athletes especially when last names do not match.
• CASH: Cash is accepted, coach will count out the money on the table in your presence, then place in envelope with your name, team name and amount.
• ZELLE: Zelle is accepted, but we will need to know the name of the account, amount and view the receipt on your phone.
• VENMO: We do NOT accept Venmo payments. If this was done accidentally, unfortunately we will need to invoice you for the fees associated with the payment.

SCHOLARSHIPS: Unfortunately, Ignite does not provide scholarships. Be careful with clubs that offer this as it can affect your daughters eligibility for college recruiting. However, Ignite does work with families to extend payments out reducing the amount due each month. This has to be mutually agreed upon with Ignite Club Director or Owner. We may be offering up a Fundraiser this year, but we cannot guarantee success for this and should not be considered as a guaranteed way to pay off the dues.

Once the contract is signed, payment has been made, your daughter’s spot on the team will be secured.

FITTINGS: We will have sessions on SUNDAY after tryouts for Fittings and Coaches meeting. Please make sure to be at these fittings as we place the jersey order quickly the following week in order to get jerseys by first tournament. Athletes will receive the practice shirts (Red/Black) at Fittings. You will not be picking up jerseys on Sunday, this is only fittings. You’ll fill out a form and pick jersey numbers, etc. Ignite honors previous athletes with getting the number they choose first, then we adjust accordingly. Coaches will help guide this process at fittings.

NOVEMBER PRACTICES: Our practice schedules are tentative until we confirm them after our High School tryouts. This means that during November, we will have sessions closely resembling our open gyms based on age, Then in December we will start team practices. All of this will be in Playmetrics (schedule, roster, communication via group chats, etc.).

Ignite is providing our athletes with top quality jerseys from Nike! Nike was able to update their custom jerseys to ensure we receive before our first match – so it’s 100% Nike this year!

IGNITE TRAVEL KIT: 3 Nike jerseys, 2 Nike spandex, 2 Nike kneepads (white/black), Nike Hoody, Nike Long Sleeve Warm-up, 2 practice shirts (red/black), Nike backpack

IGNITE LOCAL KIT: 2 Nike jerseys, 1 Nike spandex, 2 Nike kneepads (white/black), Nike Hoody, Nike Long Sleeve Warm-up, 2 practice shirts (red/black), Nike backpack