Tawa’s Club Volleyball Dots: WAVE crests; FaR Out title; younger teams win last chance in Reno

This is “Dots,” VolleyballMag.com’s weekly look at 10 things in club volleyball (or in this case, 13), past or present, that interest me and hopefully will interest you. Look for Dots every Tuesday through Junior Nationals this summer:

• Columbus, Ohio played host to USA Volleyball’s 18s Junior National Championships this past weekend. USAV, which had just Open and Club divisions at the Junior Olympics when I started covering the sport 20+ years ago; and expanded to five divisions several years ago; was seven divisions strong this year, adding Liberty and Freedom divisions. The hierarchy was as follows:

Open
National
USA
Liberty
American
Freedom
Patriot

National No. 11 WAVE 18 Juliana, seeded 17th in the 48-team Open division, took home the title after winning semifinal and championship mail biters. That made two titles in Columbus, as WAVE 18-Dave did not lose in taking the 18 Patriot division.

“I knew my girls were ready,” said head coach Juliana Conn of the Open national champions. “We were finally healthy. We finally had everybody.”

WAVE did not win its six-team opening pool. The San Diego team dropped its second match on Day 1 to eventual pool winner AZ Rev 18 Premier, the No. 13 team nationally, but did not lose again. WAVE swept Gainesville Juniors 18/17 in its next match to get back on track, then defeated No. 5 Sunshine 18 LA, No. 1 Drive Nation 18 Red and No. 12 Premier Nebraska 18 Gold in the Gold Bracket to win the title.

For a coach like Conn, who led Cathedral Catholic in the fall to an undefeated season and state and national championships, THIS was a big deal.

“It’s the biggest accomplishment of my life as a coach,” she said. “I’ll never forget it.”

While there were many keys to victory — the leadership of setter Shanelle Puetz, strength in the middle and the play on the left of Jillian Neal chief among them, WAVE would not have won but for the play of OH Julia Blysahov.

Blyashov, a Stanford signee, and top national talent, turned an ankle while playing in the postseason for Cathedral Catholic. She had to sit out the Dons’ run to the Open title in California, then tried to come back too quickly during club ball, when her shoulder wasn’t ready. She spent the next several months nursing the wing back to health as WAVE played well, but not to the level expected of a team with as much talent as this one had.

Blyashov was finely healthy this week and that made all the difference.

“Julia played more volleyball this weekend than she’d played all club season,” Conn said. “She wanted to have her moment in the sun. She led the team to huge comebacks. Hats off to her.”

Drive Nation, far and away the best 18s team in the nation this year, cruised to the semifinals, with just one dropped set, when it took on WAVE. Conn noticed that the Texas team appeared very confident facing the no. 17 seed.

“They thought they had it,” Conn said. “I told the girls, ‘Let’s prove them wrong.’ They lost the first game and it completely rattled them.”

WAVE won the first game at deuce, 26-24, then pulled out to a huge Game 2 lead. The key was a balanced offense firing from everywhere, orchestrated by Puetz, with particular emphasis on middles Cayla Payne and Eva Rohrbach attacking behind the setter.

“They were used to having their middles shutting down everyone, but Cayla and Eve were just unstoppable,” Conn said.

Down big and facing nine match points against it, Drive Nation rallied, hard, to send the second set into extra points. WAVE found just enough to win, 29-27, to reach the final.

In the meantime, Premier Nebraska 18 Gold was winning a thriller over AZ Revolution, the only team to defeat WAVE in the tournament. It was the third straight thriller for coach Shannon Smolinski and her shorthanded squad. Premier eliminated 1^st Alliance 18 Gold, the 2022 17 Open national champions; in a three-set Challenge Match to get to Gold, then won another three setter over previously unbeaten Coast 18-Ozhan in the quarterfinals.

Prior to the championship match, Conn told her WAVE team to just play each point and see.

“’Remember it’s us and them and whoever wants it more,’” she told her charges.

The teams split the first two sets. Premier surged to a 14-11 lead in Game 3, one point from the title, when Conn called time.

She told her team that Drive Nation believed they could come back from down three times as big as WAVE was right now and Drive Nation DID come back.

“’It’s just three points,’” she reminded her team. “’It’s our turn to come back.’”

WAVE rallied to tie. The team watched RS Grace Heaney attack with a left hand three times with a chance to win and be stopped or slowed each time. Finally, WAVE had a swing for the win. Puetz found Neal on the left side. Neal who was on the team last year but rarely played, had become the O1 in Blyashov’s absence and has played well. The team trusted Neal to put the ball away and that’s precisely what she did. She scored the last point in a national championship run off of a set from Puetz, a 2022 graduate who took a gap year before college to mature and get better. She, too, will enter college as a club national champion after having the tournament of her life.

“It wasn’t the crispest match, with lots of nerves and fatigue,” Conn said. “We felt like we still had all our weapons and they didn’t know where we were coming from. And everything we did seemed to work. We put in a serving sub and she scored a few points. We put in someone to block and she immediately got a block. Everyone contributed. Nothing was going to stop us. It was a perfect storm as everything came together at the right time.”

***

Premier Nebraska’s run to within a whisker of a national title was almost as remarkable as WAVE’s winning it all.

Premier, ranked No. 12 nationally, came to Columbus with just eight healthy players on the roster and summoned two sisters of players on the team, sophomore Shay Heaney and eighth grader Millie Mauch, to add depth to the bench. Those two were going to go as spectators anyway. Might as well wear uniforms (and save parents some admission fees)!

Premier was one of four teams to go 3-2 in Pool 8 and came out second. The Nebraska squad did not lose again until the championship match and even overcame the loss to injury of star hitter Destiny Ndam-Simpson in the Challenge phase, thanks to the sisters on the bench, who combined to play well in that role.

“I couldn’t be more proud and happy for these players and their families to end their Premier career with a Silver medal and a memorable storybook ending!” Smolinski.

• History will record WAVE as the national champions and Premier as the almost champions, but there were several others who could as easily have been atop the podium on Sunday.

Drive Nation was undefeated and on fire after destroying Paramount VBC 18s in the quarterfinals and lost to WAVE in the semis, 26-24, 29-27.

Coast was 6-0 and had swept five straight opponents when it took on Premier in the quarters without its best player, who doesn’t play on Sundays because of her religious beliefs. The team lost, 15-10, in the third set.

AZ Revolution, getting strong play from OHs Kendal Murphy and Kamryn Gibadlo, came within just a few points of knocking off Premier in the semifinals to set up a rematch with WAVE, which it had already defeated.

1st Alliance, getting outstanding work from OH Kennedy Wagner and defender Vanessa del Real, won its pool at 5-0 before Premier Nebraska beat the Chicago squad in a close one.

Sunshine 18 LA won its pool but was ousted in three by WAVE.

So many teams so close to glory eternal.

And the cream really did rise. After four matches in pool play, eight teams had 4-0 records. Of the eight, seven were ranked among the top 10 nationally by me. The eighth was a Triangle 18 Black just outside my top 25.

Among the top 13 teams nationally in my rankings, 11 made the top half. Missing were No. 3 Munciana Samurai, which did not compete in Columbus; and MAVS KC 18-1, which was 3-1 after four matches and primed to advance before being stunned by Metro 18 Travel in its final match of pool to drop to fourth place.

NPJ 18 Forefront, which went 7-2, achieved its goal of a top 10 finish behind strong performances from seniors Kyleene Filimaua and Alex Acevedo and juniors Alexis Haury and Chloe LeLuge. The finish was the highest for any NPJ team in an Open national championship tournament.

Seven of the eight quarterfinalists came from the top 13 nationally. It would have been 8-for-8 but Paramount stunned Club V 18 Ren Reed, 15-13 in the third.

Looking at the bottom of the standings, the lowest third of 18 Open featured zero teams in our top 25. In other words, no nationally ranked team stumbled badly in Columbus.

• How about my prognostications!

Last Tuesday, in this space, I made predictions about what would happen at 18s Junior Nationals in Columbus. Out of seven divisions, I correctly predicted the winner in THREE: KC Power 18 Black in 18 National, Legacy Girls 18 Elite in 18 Liberty and Actyve 18-Black in 18 American.

There were 48 teams in 18 National and Power was the No. 5 overall seed and I nailed it!

Legacy Girls and Actyve both won as the top seeds in their divisions, but so what? It’s still an accomplishment to pick them, especially when you consider this: Legacy Girls and Actyve were the ONLY top seeds out of the seven divisions to win national championships. Two out of seven and I picked them both!

The selecting success didn’t stop there. Here’s what I wrote last week about 18 Open champion WAVE 18-Juliana: “We are also hearing that WAVE 18 Juliana may be as healthy as it has been all season. If so, the No. 17 seed may be far too low for a team that could challenge for the podium.”

Boom!

I also had Drive Nation 18 Red medaling in Open and the team tied for third. I had Kairos Elite 18 Alpha placing second in 18 National and it placed third. I had Vegas Aces 18 Under Armour taking it all in 18 USA and it finished second. I had Five:1 18 Black placing second in 18 Liberty and it finished third. And I had Northern Nevada Juniors 18 Jason winning 18 Patriot and it placed third.

That’s a ton of good forecasting for me, perhaps my most pinpoint prognostications in 23 years of doing this. That hand you see behind me is me patting myself on the back!

The only division I had no success in was 18 Freedom, where I picked Vital 18 Gold over Club V 18 Ren Austin. Vital was 6-0 without dropping a set heading to the quarters, where it lost to JJVA 18 Teal to finish in a tie for fifth. Club V lost its first five matches and was quickly out of the running, but consider this: all five losses came in three sets. Oh, what could have been!

• KC Power navigated through the 18 National division with a 9-0 record and just one set dropped, in a Challenge match to region rival PVA 18 Elite. The team narrowly missed its pre-season goal of qualifying in Open and changed its mindset coming to Columbus from competing, as an Open team, to winning the National division.

“From Day 1, the girls played composed and with a sense of urgency, knowing that this was the last run at a national championship,” said coach Steven Roschitz. “The entire team played high level volleyball consistently throughout the weekend, but Gold Bracket standouts were outside hitter Ashlyn Bellamy, right side Ava Testrake, middle Ali Olson, and libero Skylar Weaver.”

Ohio club NOVA Juniors 18s Navy placed second. Kairos Elite tied with 1st Alliance 18 Silver for third.

“We played really well all weekend, but nobody was going to be KC Power with how well they were playing,” said Kairos coach Mitch Lunning.

Kairos got terrific play from junior libero Sam Unteidt (“played unbelievable all tournament,” Lunning said;) and right side Mo Samuels (“a beast offensively”). Other standouts for the South Dakota club included sophomore setter Sophi Randall, who played well beyond her years; six rotation OH Stella Winterfeld and fast middle Maddie Paulsen.

“Our whole team played very well,” Lunning said. “We were good enough to win the whole thing but we just unfortunately ran into a team that had an amazing final day. Hats off to KC Power. They deserved it.”

NKYVC 18-1 Tsunami finished tied for ninth with an overall record of 7-2.

“The weekend was led by UNC commit, outside hitter Sydney Nolan,” said coach Taylor Pahl. “She was consistently the go-to hitter and rose to the occasion with multiple kills per set. Ava Siefke, committed to Eastern Michigan University, provided consistent offense while maintaining stable passing as a primary passer. She was found on the outside as well as attacking backrow by setter, Maya Hunt, who is committed to Marshall University. Maya mixed up the offense effectively and did a great job establishing the middle hitters then finding the hitter who was open.

“The outsides were effective due to middle hitter, Sarah Newberry, who will be attending Lewis University. Sarah was able to be dominant offensively by running multiple options in front of Maya as well as having the ability to run a slide. The offense would not have been possible though without the consistent passing of libero, Kayla Hostetler, who will be playing at the University of Cincinnati. Not only was Kayla money on passing, but her defense was superb. She made plays that seemed impossible and keeping balls alive.”

• Topeka Impact 18-1 captured the 18 USA division by sweeping Vegas Aces 18 Under Armour twice, first in pool play and again in the finals. The team played good defense and got great production from RS Taylor Russell and, in the championship match, from MaKinsey Jones. But the team won it because of a special talent, a player that coach Mark Evans insisted was the best from the Missouri/Kansas area over the past 23 years (a bold statement considering S Jenna Gray and RS Audriana Fitzmorris won three national titles at Stanford and S Madison Lilley helped Kentucky win a natty).

“We won it because of Brooklyn DeLeye,” Evans said of the future Kentucky Wildcat. “The did is incredible. Best kid I’ve ever seen. The kid can do everything. Best passer, best setter, best hitter. She can do it all.”

Topeka had its backs to the wall in the Challenge phase versus Dallas Skyline 18 Black, but rallied from a Game 1 thumping to force a third game then jumped out to a 7-0 lead and never looked back. Led by DeLeye, the team played terrific ball in the Gold bracket and never looked back.

“I told the kids if we would stay up and celebrate every point like we wanted it for three days, we would win this thing,” Evans said. “They played awesome!”

• Liberty Girls, the team that qualified Open last year but declined the bid to play at AAUs, played USAV in 2023 and won it all in 18 Liberty. The club, located just north of Los Angeles, opened and closed its championship run with wins over Roots 181 Green, from Austin.

“Legacy 18 Elite was led by the great all-around play of MVP Madi Maxwell, the dominating front row presence of Victoria Davis, the spot on setting by Milani Lee, and great defense of Laurel Barsochinni,” said Legacy’s Walt Ker.

• Another SoCal squad, Actyve 18-Black, went 10-0 to win the 18 American division.

“The team played consistent and calm all weekend,” said coach Lainey Gera. “They took care of the controllables and executed at a high level for three straight days. I’m very proud of them for showing up ready to compete for their last club tournament.”

• Houston Juniors 18 Premier won a nail biter of a national championship match, 15-13 in the third over JJVA 18 Teal.

JJVA was led by All-Tournament Team players Jenna Otts (OH; Gardner Webb), Ella Johns (RS; Emmanuel College) and Veronica Sierzant (S; Syracuse).

Liberos Mia Watson (The Citadel), Sarah “Tiger” Seabrooke (Rollins College) and Emilia Estrada (LeMoyne) passed, dug, pancaked and hustled on every play.

Setter Tyler Patterson (UNC Pembroke), OH Jalynn Brown (USF) and RS Faith Kelly (Young Harris College) helped execute each game plan for a team that went 8-1 over three days. Fill-in players Molly Chappell (Tyler Junior College) and Ryann Prince (Lake Sumter State College) also contributed for a team that had to beat top seeds to get to the championship, where it almost defied the odds of completing a year filled with injury and illness with a national championship.

• In Las Vegas, another 18U tournament, the Emperor’s Cup, was convening its inaugural event and hoping one day to be able to legitimately claim that it was crowning a national champion. The event, powered by Under Armour, was small, with just 70 teams total spread across four divisions, but it was quite successful. The players liked UA’s commitment to them and the parents enjoyed the temperate evenings on the town in Sin City.

The play was pretty good, too!

There were only seven teams in the 18 Open division, but the semifinalists were all legitimate teams. In the end, FaR Out 18 Black, led by MB Kennedy Arp and libero Carley Piercefield, won the division over Bama Elite 18 Renegades in a fun, intense championship match.

Bama Elite, a Munciana satellite, reached the finals by engineering a massive semifinal upset of Munciana 18 Samurai. In a case of the pupil becomes the master, coach Randy Gardner, a longtime successful Munciana coach, bested his mentor behind the determined play of MB Kaitlyn Grant and OH Ellie Pate. Pate was the best player in the tournament. The victory was emotional for Gardner and his team and could be the one that puts the second-year club on the map.

***

Two huge middles, 6-4 Kryssa Moerman and 6-3 Katherine Rank, powered Colorado Juniors 18Bri to the 18 National title. Tstreet 18-Katie, a mix of players from the Inland Empire and Irvine locations; and Vegas United G18 Navy also won divisions in a tournament field that was national in scope, with 20 states represented.

• While the spotlight was decidedly on the 18s this past weekend, over in Reno there were teams hoping to say the No Dinx Far Western National Qualifier was the place they qualified on the court for Junior Nationals in Chicago in a few months’ time.

In 17 Open, Mizuno Long Beach 17 Rockstar, Pohaku 17-1 and Madfrog 17s National Green all puncher their tickets with top three finishes in a 30-team field.

Long Beach won the tournament, with several big wins along the way, notably a win over national No. 2 Colorado Juniors 17Kevin. Charlie Fuerbringer and Sade Ilawole led the way as setters, with Kate Martin contributing with big offense and Taylor Mercado shining in the libero jersey.

Long Beach is the only club in the SCVA to have its top team qualified in every age group from 12s to 18s.

Pohaku placed second, but found itself fortunate to get out of Day 1, as every match went the distance. The Kansas City team advanced when sophomore middle Mak Miller’s block sealed a crossover win over Nebraska Elite 17 Top Gun.

“Two points the other way and we are knocked out of contention on Day 1,” said coach Conan Salanoa. “Who knew we’d be playing in the finals on Day 3?”

Pohaku survived a Day 2 loss to Long Beach to advance to Gold and then started the Gold pool with a three-set loss to Vision 17 Gold. The team got help when Absolute 17 Black beat Vision, leaving Pohaku, which beat Madfrog, needing to defeat Absolute, without rest, to clinch a bid.

That match went three and Pokahu was “gassed,” but the team had enough in the tank to fight off three match points to earn the bid on an Aleki Alexander slide.

“Aleki, who just committed to Arkansas, was huge for us in that match,” Salanoa said. “If she was in, she was getting the ball and she came through almost every time.”

“I think the best moment of the weekend was seeing the tears and emotion from both the players and parents,” Salanoa said. “Qualifying Open was one of three goals set at the beginning of the year and it meant so much to them.”

Salanoa lauded the play of setter Ava Martin in the team’s ruin to the finals.

“She was great with her decision making, defense, and, this week, she added blocking to her game,” the coach added. “We felt that her adrenaline and fire carried us to earning our bid. Her words to me were, ‘There was so much adrenaline going through me during that Absolute game that I think someone could have shot me and I would have been fine.’ I would have to agree with her. I have never seen that out of her before.”

Pohaku got contributions from all sectors in clinching its trip to Chicago. On Day 3 against Madfrog, OH Ava Spachek had the golden touch. The back row of Claire Jones, Riley Ourth and Sylvia Bunde had their most consistent tournament of the season as a whole. Mak Miller had her best blocking tournament of the season. OH Kaitlyn Burke and RS Nela Misipeka had big kills and blocks throughout the tournament. Seenane Brewer, probably our most physical outside, only was able to play one full match because of altitude sickness.

“But we needed every kill in that match versus Nebraska Elite,” Salanoa said.

Like Pohaku, Madfrog also felt great relief at qualifying in Reno.

“Our team has faced a lot of adversity since February 1 and has been working on finding the rhythm with several athletes having to play out of their position,” said coach Shelly Tucker.

One player quit in January and one of the team’s two middles went down with a dislocated kneecap the same month. That created a lot of stress as the team worked to find a viable lineup while also trying to keep players in positions they needed to be seen playing for recruiting purposes. It came together enough at Far Westerns.

“We found our rhythm and fully trusted each other to do their job on the court,” Tucker said. “It was a full team effort for sure. Our energy was unmatched most of the time. Our serve receive set us up for the first ball execution consistently. We served more aggressively this weekend, which created a lot of serve-receive runs. Not one athlete stood out above the rest of the team. They all stood out.”

• Idaho Crush 16 Bower won its third qualifier this weekend in Reno, but the 16 Open story was the getting down to bid-ness of Madfrog 16s National Green, Vision 16 Gold and NorCal 16-1 Black.

The Frogs had several terrific wins on their way to the championship final, where they lost in three.

“16 National Green played their hearts out knowing Reno was their last chance to qualify in Open,” said coach Paula Araujo.

After losing to Dallas Skyline 16 Royal in its second match of Day 1, Madfrog needed to win a crossover to stay alive, then caught fire. They won seven matches in a row, including a legendary Gold pool match with Colorado Juniors 16 Shannon, where the Frogs had to rally from down 13-8 in the third to win.

“My girls were super excited to play the final against Idaho Crush,” Araujo said. “It was an intense match with a lot of cheers from players and parents. As a coach I am extremely proud of them. We had some ups and downs throughout the season and finally we achieved our goal.”

NorCal had to battle to earn the third bid. The team had finished just out of bid position in fifth place in two previous qualifiers and faced adversity on its way to the Gold pools, surviving and advancing after losses that ended Day 1 and started Day 2.

The Day 2 loss, to Idaho Crush, 15-13 in the third, put NorCal in win or else mode versus Dallas Skyline 16 Royal and Forza1 North 16 ONE. The team won both behind the steady serve receive from libero Maren O’Farrell, OHs Abby Krause and Kaycie Burdick, which led to a huge offensive output from OH Lucy Chertock and middles Charlotte Kelly and Sophia Vella.

Saturday night, in the first match of the Gold pools, NorCal fell in two deuce sets to Madfrog, despite big games from Chertock and Kelly and steady play from RS Ellie Hunt and setter Melissa Jin and Sophia Allison. That left NorCal needing to win both Sunday Gold pool matches to clinch a top three finish and a bid.

The first match was a slugfest with Colorado Juniors. Chertock had 17 kills, Kelly five blocks and Jin the match-clinching ace in the 16-14 win.

NorCal won another three setter, over NORCO 16 Black, with contributions off the bench from OH Sarah Guzman, and snuck into bid position when the Frogs edged CJ, 17-15 in the third, to avoid a three-way tie at 2-1.

• As best I can tell, only two bids were awarded in 15 Open, to a Northern California squad called Academy Volleyball High Performance 15 Danielle and to Forza1 North 15 ONE. Houston Skyline 15 Royal won the division.

Forza1 North got its bid by tying for third.

“Our preparation for the tournament, after falling a match short at Salt Lake City, was just about putting your teammates in the best possible position to succeed,” said coach Austin Meador. “Doing your job to the best of your ability, so the girl next to you could do the same. It helped us keep engagement in the moment to moment very high throughout the practices leading up to Far Western, and throughout the tournament.

“When it came time for the match for a bid on Day 2, we knew there was nothing going to stop us. West Matavao, Mya Capistrano, Jayden Hanson and Nina Hemsley played pivotal roles throughout the entire tournament.”

Aspire 15 Premier was down two starters due to ankle sprains but still won the Silver Division, placing ninth overall. MB Anna Williams, a sophomore, hit .389 with 27 blocks to power Aspire, which also got outstanding work from freshman outside Nia Curry. Other notables includes eighth grade libero Breanna Walsh, MB Hayden Conner and setter Erin Clark.

• In other action from Far Westerns …

Colorado Juniors 17Jayne came to Reno as the No. 1 seed in 17 USA and held it all weekend to qualify for Junior Nationals. Libero Alysse Marcosco led the team in digs with 88, passed a 2.43 and added nine aces in 16 sets played.

MAVS KC 15-1 placed second in 15 USA.

“The team played great all weekend, ending with an 8-2 record. Everyone played exceptional volleyball and we were able to accomplish our goal of making it to the championship game!” noted coach Whitney Little-Bright.

The coach shared this funny bit:

“When coming into the game, our Libero and Middle Blocker like to chest bump one another. Would you believe it that our Libero’s chest bump was so powerful that our middle blocker was thrown to the ground? Talk about small but mighty!!”

• In other action from the weekend …

Forza1 16 ONE won the SCVA Regional Bid tournament this past weekend going 7-0 (14-0). They secured a bid to the 16 Freedom division. Sidney Gray, a hammer in the middle who touches 10-2, dominated the net. McKenna Bishop stepped up as setter with the starting setter out injured.

Rockwood Thunder 16 Elite won the Gateway Region Bid tournament, earning a 16 National bid this weekend. Trailing HP Illinois 16 National, 20-16, in the first set of the winner’s bracket final, Maddy Bach went on a eight-point service run to help Rockwood win the set, 25-21.

Bach followed with a 10-0 service run to start the next set, as Rockwood cruised to a 25-14 win.

Since this was a double elimination tournament, Rockwood faced HP 16 National again, in the final, losing the match, 25-14, 25-16, which set up an “IF” set to 25 to determine which team earned the National bid. In a back and forth set, featuring 14 tie scores, Rockwood squeaked out a 26-24 win, behind the exceptional play of DSs Avery Helms and Mandy Lawson, both of whom had spectacular digs and key service runs.

JJVA 16 Teal won a Freedom Bid this past weekend at the Asics Florida Volleyball Challenge in Orlando. JJVA was led by OH Nadia Ewton and RS Olivia Ryno.

JJVA 15 Teal upgraded its USA bid from Lone Star to a National at the Asics Florida Volleyball Challenge. The team went 7-2 powered by OH Sofia Munio, RS Kyla Hollis, RS Savannah Jackson, setter Molly VanDeusen, and OH Sarahbelle Jameson on offense. Defensively, Julia Howard, Alexis Sowers and Bella Tavares-Seda all managed the back row with style and grace. Middles Rayna Joquin, Molly Fitzpatrick and Morgan Ainsley all blocked and scored when needed and setter Hazel Williams helped the offensive efforts as well.

Coach Nick Cheronis said he is pleased with his team’s progress as they head to AAU and USAV Junior Nationals with high hopes.

Until next time …