DETROIT – One of the most difficult things to do in volleyball is to beat a good team twice in the same tournament. That proved to be the case in the 15 National Division of the USAV Girls Juniors Championship…
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SubscribeDETROIT – One of the most difficult things to do in volleyball is to beat a good team twice in the same tournament. That proved to be the case in the 15 National Division of the USAV Girls Juniors Championship in Detroit for Premier 15 Gold.
Premier came into the 48-team tournament as the top seed and played like it for four full days, winning its first 10 matches of the tournament to advance to the gold-medal match. Among its wins on Wednesday was a gutsy 20-25, 26-24, 15-13 comeback win over #4 overall seed A5 South 15s, and it was the same A5 team Premier would face Thursday afternoon in the championship.
Much like its first match, the first set of the championship contest was an intensely played back-and-forth game with A5 making a late run late to take a 25-23 win. The second set, Ngozi Iloh – one of the best middles in the 15s division in the nation – caught fire and was virtually unstoppable in leading A5 to a 25-15 win in the second set and to the gold medal.
Premier 15 Gold’s second-place finish was the first top-10 finish by a Nebraska team in the USAV championships this year and brought the total number of top-10 finishes at the AAU and USAV national championships by Nebraska teams to a combined total of seven.
Members of the Premier 15 Gold team are:
Devyn Carmichael, Millard West
Cameron Cartwright, Skutt Catholic
Mary Claire Daubendiek, Omaha Marian
Lindsay Krause, Skutt Catholic
Holly Oschner, Lincoln Northeast
Olivia Rouw, Skutt Catholic
Phyona Schrader, Ankeny High School
Norah Sis, Papillion-LaVista
Bridget Smith, Skutt Catholic
Sophia Steffes, Omaha Marian
So far at the USAV championships, competition in the 12, 14 and 15s division has been completed with the 11, 13, 16 and 17s remaining. The 18s were played in California earlier this year.
Below is a list of how all the teams from Nebraska that have completed competition at the USAV National championship have done. Teams are listed by oldest age first and divisions are ranked from most competitive to the least.
15 National
Premier 15 Gold – 2nd place
15 American
Premier 15 Black – tied for 35th place
14 Open
Premier 14 Gold – 25th place
14 National
Premier 14 Black – tied for 33rd
14 American
Premier 14 Red – 38th place
12 National
Premier 12 Gold – tied for 13th place
12 American
Premier 12 Black – -tied for 13th place
Nebraska ONE 12 Invasion – 30th place
