H-Town Showdown #2 – 16s – The Right Siders

<p>The second weekend of February had a lot of competition at the club level in the Houston area, with a handful of tournaments taking place around the city. One of them was the second stop of the H-Town Showdown.</p> <p>The event featured 77 club teams across its three divisions and they competed in three different venues in the area. Our destination was the FAST Complex, where 32 of the 44 teams from the 16s division hit the court on Saturday.</p> <p>We’ll highlight the top prospects we spotted in the tournament over the course of the week and today we’ll present some intriguing right siders:</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Addison Menefee – HJV 16 National – HS: Ridge Point – 2025</strong></p> <p>Addison Menefee’s game is very much a work in progress but when you think she’s a six-footer right sider who’s playing one year up at HJV 16 National, the signs about her future are all positive. Menefee has great reach on offense and is capable of finding some interesting angles when hitting the ball. She’s still a little bit inconsistent but is already very hard to stop when she gets on a good offensive rhythm. Menefee’s tall and well-structured block is another asset of her game.</p> <p><iframe src="//www.hudl.com/embed/video/3/15378590/62098e12d45e090568188aed" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="124119" first="Olivia" last="Thompson"] – AVA TX 16 Adidas – HS: Friendswood – 2024</strong></p> <p>It feels like [player_tooltip player_id="124119" first="Olivia" last="Thompson"] is starting to scratch the surface of her tremendous potential this club season after joining AVA from her previous club Houston Stellar. A left-handed, 6’3” right-sider, she has every single tool a player in her position could dream about and it seems like her game is now coming together, especially on offense. Thompson has made great strides since the last club season, when we first saw her in action, and has shown great progress on both the physical and technical sides of her game as she’s now making contact with the ball at a higher point and has more variation on her hits and shots. She ranks 112th in our 2024 Prep Dig State Rankings.</p> <p><iframe src="//www.hudl.com/embed/video/3/15260237/6209706af560590a2cbb3de5" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="155125" first="Taryn" last="Gilreath"] – HJV 16 Elite – HS: Cypress Ranch – 2024</strong></p> <p>We had also written about [player_tooltip player_id="155125" first="Taryn" last="Gilreath"] in the past and she continues to move in the right direction in her career. Extremely versatile and well-rounded, the 5’11” right sider masters the most important skills of the game of volleyball and is one of those players who could be slotted anywhere on the court and would still perform well. Very long and athletic, she plays a very smart game at the net, trying to hit around the block as much as possible, but also has the power to score against the odds. Also an excellent defender, Gilreath sets for HJV 16 Elite when at the backcourt and does extremely well on that role too. She was extremely productive for her high school team Cypress Ranch during the last season with 555 assists, 259 kills, 186 digs, 36 blocks and 34 aces and ranks 29^th in our 2024 Prep Dig State Rankings.</p> <p><iframe src="//www.hudl.com/embed/video/3/12210014/620996fbff0ca707a0710467" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>