Paramount 16 Grabs a Bid After Sunshine Qualifier Finish

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It is still early in the club season but the Chesapeake Region earned their fourth bid this past weekend with Paramount's second place finish in the Sunshine Qualifier. In the first match they played they swept a talented OK Charge team. Little did they realize they would face this same team in the finals. OK Charge managed to pull out a victory in the rematch 25-10, 23-25 and 15-13.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Four of their last five matches went three sets. Paramount managed to pull out the first three, including a 16-14 win against another Oklahoma team, Ultimate Performance VBC. A total of 64 teams participated in the USA Division.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Strong defense remains a recipe for a typical Paramount team. They also made it tough on teams to mount an offense with tough serves, forcing passing that created out of system sets. Defensive specialists <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='235291' first='Sadee' last='Gedse'] </strong>and <strong>Isabel Morales</strong>, along with outsides <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='235282' first='Adriana' last='Perodin']</strong>, <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='248705' first='Zoe' last='Ryu']</strong> and <strong>Lauryn Allen</strong> played a role in enhancing the defensive game. Setters <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='238357' first='Claire' last='Mo']</strong> and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='183972' first='Abigail' last='Litonjua']</strong> went on big serving runs. They also distributed their sets to all quadrants of the net to keep the defenses off balance.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Paramount also shined with perhaps two of the top 16U middles in the Chesapeake area. Both are teammates from Riverside High School. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='225187' first='Simone' last='Schaefer'] </strong>was voted the Potomac District player of the year as a sophomore and also made the Class 5 second team All State. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='181309' first='Brianna' last='Holladay']</strong> stands an inch taller and ranks number 29 in our class of 2025. She rises to 10 foot with her approach jump, the highest on the team. Both bring a complete game to the court, putting up good blocks to slow down an offense, and hitting quick sets to take the pressure off the outsides.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The right sides were key to balancing their offensive success. [player_tooltip player_id='240027' first='Kaitlyn' last='Demitz'] and <strong>Leana Gould</strong> restricted the left side attacks with key blocks. They also contributed to the offense with clutch kills. Blockers could not key on any one area of the court because all the attackers generated kills. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='756427' first='Elise' last='Bragg'] </strong>and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='181311' first='Skyler' last='Tennant'] </strong>also contributed to the right side offense.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Next on their calendar sits qualifiers in the Big South, Windy City and Northeast where they hope to move up a notch to qualify for open.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Also at the Sunshine Qualifiers, Metro 16 had a tough go of it in the Open Division. They lost to their first two opponents, Tribe Elite Cardinal and Legacy Adidas. Those two teams would go on to finish second and fifth in the tournament. That dropped Metro down to the second division on day two. Eventually Metro finished 29th place out of 40 teams. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Academy Diamond 16 finished in 27th place in the open. They play with libero <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='196556' first='Caleigh' last='Ponn']</strong>, who ranks number three in our class of 2025. Despite playing for a North Carolina club she attends Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke and was the only Virginia high school player to string together over 700 kills. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->