Five Tough, Consistent Player to Watch from a Week 7 Match

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Below are five athletes to watch from a recent CIF Southern Section match:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='162782' first='Sofia' last='Williams']</strong> | 5'10" | 2024 | OH | San Clemente High School<br>With a hitting chart that will fill up a lot of white space, [player_tooltip player_id='162782' first='Sofia' last='Williams'] is certainly a goto player. As her Tritons need a point, she is counted on regularly to deliver. Her most successful point scoring swing is one that hits the hands of the blockers. Specifically, she directs the ball off their hands either out of bounds or quickly to the floor. What makes this possible is her knack for hitting near the bottom of the ball. As she comes around to hit the ball, she uses her wrist for late adjustments against those blockers. It truly is fun to watch this attention to detail. Whether in the front row or back row, her setter knows where Williams is and will look to set her.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='494341' first='Ashton' last='Nelson']</strong> | 6'2" | 2026 | OPP | San Clemente High School <br>[player_tooltip player_id='494341' first='Ashton' last='Nelson'] is a hitter that will make any middle back defender stay on her toes. She reaches high and hits the ball over a line defender's head to the last three feet of the court. This low percentage shot is very difficult to bring back up. The versatile hitter is one that gets set on both the left and right side. When blocking, she is best described as a wall with extended awnings. As such, she can simply wait for the set to come to her. Nelson has a bright future and will continue to be an offensive and defensive point scorer as the season closes out. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Mackenzie Granum</strong> | 2026 | S | San Clemente High School<br>Consistency is the first word to mind when seeing the game of Mackenzie Granum. This mostly describes where she will set the ball. The phrase if it is not broken then do not fix it applied to her set decisions. She consistently set the ball to the outside so much that one could close their eyes and guess that is where it would go. All encouragement to her continuing that because it works. Granum is part of a 6-2 offense where she also stays in the front row. Additionally, she is another wall, like Nelson, making the life of an outside against the Triton block very difficult.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Aubrey Tran </strong>| 5'3" | 2026 | DS/L | Tesoro High School<br>Toughness and grit are two descriptive words to describe the game of Aubrey Tran. She will stand in on the sideline and simply wait even knowing she is facing a very hard hitting attacker. The ball may rise up on her and tattoo her yet she walks off and just keeps right on going. The specific time this happened in the Titan/Triton match really displayed the passion Tran has for the game. Additionally, she is willing and accepting of a new role during a mid match change without any fluctuation in demeanor or performance. She is a great teammate that is comfortable encouraging and directing her teammates even at the young age of being a sophomore. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Emma Horton </strong>| 5'9" | 2024 | S | Tesoro High School<br>Watching Emma Horton is certainly interesting for any fan as one pays attention to just her. She is an excellent game manager to set her hitters up for opportunities to succeed. Specifically, she runs playsets that overload one area of the net which can give the hitter in the other area only one blocker to face. Additionally, she makes really great decision of when to set her middles. Time and again her middles hit against just one blocker as well. Her consistency of height and location on the set to an outside is really nice to see. Horton actually does the same on a backset as well. She lofts that backset up much like in the men's game where the idea is to have the highest player in the air just go up and give it a rip. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->