MOJO 15 Shines at Spooky Nook

They call it the largest indoor sports complex in the United States. The location is in Manheim, Pennsylvania, just outside Lancaster. At one time, at least for a day, Lancaster was the capitol of the United States. At least, the city of Lancaster makes that claim. This past weekend Spooky Nook held a volleyball tournament. Close to 200 teams played at this event, their ages ranging from 12-17. Some of those teams may have stayed in one of the 135 rooms at the hotel next to Spooky Nook.   Most of the teams were from Pennsylvania, but there were a few Virginia teams entered into the event. The teams were sorted out into three levels, the first being National, followed by Club and then American. The National Division consisted of the stronger teams. Only one Virginia team advanced to the finals in the various ages of the National Division. That team was MOJO 15.   It was a two day tournament. The first day was pool play followed by either an appearance in the single elimination gold or silver bracket. MOJO battled that first day, winning all three of their pool matches, two of them going three sets. In their last match they beat the number one seed in the tournament Fusion Blue, taking the third set 15-10. Fusion Blue is the third ranked team in the Keystone Region according to AES.   In the first round of the gold playoffs on Sunday MOJO swept past Fusion White 25-18, 25-23. That brought them to the semi-finals where they played TNT Mambas, the number nine ranked team in the Keystone Region. Things did not go so well in that first set as they lost to TNT Mambas 25-19. MOJO recovered, battling back to win the last two sets 25-20 and 15-6. A setter dump by Kayleigh Williams gave MOJO a 7-6 lead in the third set. That gave them the momentum to power their way to victory with eight straight points, with two redirect kills by [player_tooltip player_id='530363' first='Adelyn' last='Pye'] and Frances Armstrong finishing the game off.   East Coast Power King of Prussia True proved too strong for MOJO in the finals, even though their 19th ranking in AES was lower than the previous two teams they beat. Their two left sides Jadyn Johnson and Kayla Tilghman provided much of the offense for East Coast, whether hitting front row, back row or getting points with their serves. In the first set with East Coast behind 4-6 Kayla served three aces and accumulated eight points on serve to give East Coast a 12-6 lead. They never looked back as Jadyn and Kayla combined for at least 12 points serving. MOJO had jumped out to an early 2-0 lead after two aces from Kayleigh Williams. That was the last time momentum swung their way.   In the second set East Coast jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. Petra Evans served three consecutive aces for MOJO to cut the lead to 13-22 but that advantage was too insurmountable for MOJO. East Coast Power KOP took the gold with 25-13 and 25-14 wins.   Marley Angelucci set a 5/1 for East Coast Power in the championship match. She did a great job running the offense, distributing the majority of the sets to her left side attackers. Addison Ochoa played a solid libero and finished the match off with an ace. Sarah Moy proved too much in the middle, running quick sets, shoots and slides that kept the defense off balance. Adriana Roach provided some big blows from the right side.   MOJO came into the tournament as the 35th ranked Chesapeake 15 team according to the Automated Event System (AES). While their start of the season appears a little sluggish they did place 33rd out of 128 teams in the Northeast Qualifiers in the American Division and 9th place out of 20 teams in their most recent tournament, the Chesapeake Showdown. From those results it appears they are coming together as a team. The silver medal they earned at Spooky Nook is their first medal for the 2024 season.   In the finals Mojo used two liberos. [player_tooltip player_id='530364' first='Caroline' last='Apergis'] and [player_tooltip player_id='539413' first='Angie' last='Sun'] made some impressive digs. They prevented a number of hard hit balls from hitting the floor. In the second set Caroline was on fire, flying all over the court to make impressive digs. East Coast hit the ball hard but MOJO's liberos did a good job of keeping rallies alive.   [player_tooltip player_id='539414' first='Giulia' last='Pescosolido'] and [player_tooltip player_id='530366' first='Gabriela' last='Donley'] put up good blocks in the middle. They also ran the quicks well. Giulia appears taller than her listed 5'9" height and Gabi lists at 5'11". Claire Nitkowski brings a good lefthanded swing to the right side. She made some nice placement shots to mix with her hard driven kills. [player_tooltip player_id='530363' first='Adelyn' last='Pye'] and Frances Armstrong provided offense from the left side. Just not enough to win the finals.   Their next tournament is the Summer Rumble in Baltimore. MOJO did not qualify for Junior Nationals in Las Vegas and is scheduled to play in AAUs instead. Based on their last few showings they appear to be playing their best volleyball as the season winds down.

They call it the largest indoor sports complex in the United States. The location is in Manheim, Pennsylvania, just outside Lancaster. At one time, at least for a day, Lancaster was the capitol of the United States. At least, the city of Lancaster makes that claim. This past weekend Spooky Nook held a volleyball tournament. Close to 200 teams played at this event, their ages ranging from 12-17. Some of those teams may have stayed in one of the 135 rooms at the hotel next to Spooky Nook.