Nebraska’s Showdown Standouts in 16’s

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Nebraska Showdown had a wide range of talent between the courts at Kinetic and Speedway Village. It is the time of the season where some teams are winding down the season and others are gearing up for Nationals. Here is a look at some standouts in the 16's Open/Club combined division.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Setter Macey Gronemeyer is a multisport athlete at Tri-County who plays on VCNL 15 Navy. She has great hands and hustles all over the court. She had 289 set assists and 104 kills this past fall season. Gronemeyer does a nice job of running the offense and keeping great composure and distributing the ball well. She has a quiet confidence about her which was a valuable asset over the weekend.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='402985' first='Maddie' last='Johnson'], an outside hitter for Nebraska Juniors 16 Red has a heavy arm on the pin. She is able to hit a cut shot between the block or tool off the block. She also swings well from the back row. She was 16 Red's go-to hitter on Saturday.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A fellow Nebraska Juniors 16 Red teammate is 5'10” libero [player_tooltip player_id='464916' first='McKenna' last='Powell']. She plays good floor defense and is strong on serve receive. During the season she plays right side for Malcolm and is a great blocker. She hustled all over the floor on Saturday! Loved watching her effort against a VCN 15 Black. She never gave up on a ball.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nebraska Juniors 15 Black has a nice class of 2026 pin hitter in Sammi Plas. She does a great job on either pin of finding shots and hitting down the line with power. She has a big approach and it allows her to open her range across the net.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>6'2” Sophomore [player_tooltip player_id='276202' first='Ashley' last='Beethe'] was strong on the right side on Sunday. She was able to set a nice block against pin hitters and has a heavy arm.&nbsp; She had a whopping 429 kills for Johnson County this past fall. Her club reps with Nebraska Juniors will prove to be big as she continues to get stronger and improve.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Libero/DS [player_tooltip player_id='521256' first='Emmalyn' last='Quinn'] from VCN 15 Black does a great job on serve receive. She has a great platform and is just a steady player in the back row. She also had some really tough digs from right behind the ten foot line in left back. Emmalyn also has a nice jump float and it is deceiving since she is a lefty. She had several aces over the weekend.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Setter [player_tooltip player_id='458146' first='Alex' last='Kroll'] does a phenomenal job of distributing the ball across all of the strong hitters on VCN 15 Black. She can run a quick tempo and also set a nice high ball to the pin. She has great soft hands. Kroll also has a sneaky setter jump dump that has scored on numerous occasions this season. She has long arms and is able to slow down hits by getting lots of touches despite being a bit undersized. Kroll also has a calm demeanor as a floor general. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>One of the most impressive players over the weekend was middle hitter [player_tooltip player_id='458060' first='Reagan' last='Meyers'] from South Central 16 Black. She has long levers and moves so well across the net. So incredibly athletic as well. Meyers' fast arm swing and high contact point make her hard to slow down. The freshman out of Superior has a high ceiling as she hammered 314 kills and had 29 stuff blocks in her prep debut.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Lots of great talent over a fun weekend in Lincoln! Keep an eye out on these players as we head into the last weekend of Midwest Power League, Nationals and into the fall prep season.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->