June 21, 2023

A club can’t win both AAU and USAV national championships without accomplishing the first leg in Orlando. That’s the position Mintonette Sports m.51 finds itself in after capturing the 15 Open gold medal Wednesday after outlasting top-ranked Skyline 15 Royal in the final. Both teams are headed to Chicago to compete for another national championship next week, when Mintonette will not only look to double-up on the gold medals, but will be looking to go back-to-back after raising the 14 Open trophy a year ago in Indianapolis. Needless to say, there are players from both Mintonette and Skyline featured on our Day 4 Show Stoppers below, along with many more standout players from Wednesday’s gold-bracket action. (Gold Medal Rundown) (Day 4 All Red Hat Team) DAY 4 SHOW STOPPERS Gabby Semona MB Tri-State Elite 15 Blue: If you love middle play, then the gold bracket was the place to be on the final day of competition. Semona, a 6-3 force, was just one in a bunch of middles holding it down and delivering booming kills and rally-ending stuffs. Grace Jones L/DS Tri-State Elite 15 Blue: Jones had her hands full having to pick off all the fastballs being thrown her way from the Boiler Jrs offense. The attack comes from everywhere but Jones did a solid job getting balls up and keeping her team in the point. Gwenyth Berry OH Top Select 15 Elite: Berry is a bit undersized but she has a powerful arm and hits a heavy ball. She was doing a good job of hitting off or around blocks. Kaleigh Langmo OH Top Select 15 Elite: Langmo filled out the other half of the Top Select outside duo. She’s a heady attacker who excelled at going high hands. Isabelle Masten L/DS Rev 15-1 Fuego: Masten was among the standout defenders with her back row presence and effort. She’s a smooth and accurate passer and covers the court well. Karen Dutro MB Rev 15-1 Fuego: Dutro is a lanky middle who can let it fly when she connects. She’s definitely a threat and a target when Rev is in system and defenses must keep track of her. Kalyssa Taggart S/RS A5 15 Bob: Taggart starred in a two-way role. She’s another smart hitter who is low error and scores in a variety of ways. She’s also a steady setter who locates consistently. Ryan Sadler OH A5 15 Bob: Sadler continues to make us take notice. She’s hard to miss on the attack. She’s the one still hanging in the air and swinging as the blockers are coming down. Elle Mottola S WPVC 15 Armour Black: Mottola was a bright spot at the setting position and big reason WPVC was still in contention on the final day. She dishes well from anywhere on the court and puts her hitters in winnable positions. Sophia Stallworth MB WPVC 15 Armour Black: Like we said, middles were the name of the game with Stallworth’s name being called a lot whenever she’s across the front. She has a whip for an arm combined with hops and it makes her a difficult cover. *** Victoria Belfort L/DS Tribe 15 Elite Cardinal: Belfort was passing well out of serve receive. She also was digging and making plays to keep the rally alive. Mia Gold Tribe 15 Elite Cardinal: Gold was arguably the most lights-out outside in a gym full of big swingers. She was on fire for Tribe, slinging shots left and right with authority. Gigi Artiles OH Tribe 15 Elite Cardinal: Artiles, like Gold, has been mentioned previously for her standout play. The problem for her opponent is her big arm doesn’t go away. She can hit as hard as anyone there and it made for loud kills at times. Jenness Orcutt RS GP 15 Rox: Orcutt filled her role on the right side well. She came up with timely blocks and key kills, including a stuff and winner late to help GP close out its victory over Top Select. Alana Bailey MB Far Out 15 Black: Bailey flies under the radar compared to the other middles in the gym but she shouldn’t. She has tons of potential with her quickness and jumping ability. Meredith Martin L/DS Legacy 15-1 Adidas: Martin is a defensive rock, as she does not crack. She’s a steady passer and defender and makes unbelievable saves at times. Gabby DiVita OH Legacy 15-1 Adidas: DiVita’s highlights were many. She’s a free-swinging outside who gets up, extends and ricochets shots down in a hurry. Kayla Nwabueze MB Legacy 15-1 Adidas: Nwabueze owns the net at times on both sides of the ball. She can power balls through, over or around blocks or frustrate with a well-placed tip. She can then turn around and cram a ball back in an attacker’s face on the block. Ella Andrews MB Legacy 15-1 Adidas: Andrews is also major weapon on both sides of the ball. She’s another strong blocker but she really excels on the attack. She has a next-level arm with her power and swing. Eva Long S Legacy 15-1 Adidas: I mentioned it before but the way Long competes is a joy to watch. She has a no-nonsense approach and dishes well to all spots as she knows how to get all her hitters involved. *** Ellie Hepler L/DS Boiler Jrs 15 Gold: Hepler covers and moves very well around the court. She’s also an above-average passer and defender who brings a lot of passion to the lineup. Cali Foster OH Boiler Jrs 15 Gold: Foster’s all-around game makes her a joy to watch. She does it all above average and she goes all out doing it, from laying out for a ball to getting off the ground and bashing balls. Madison Miles OH Boiler Jrs 15 Gold: With Miles, it can come front and back row equally well. She extends really well and has a loose arm to explode on balls with. Keoni Williams MB Skyline 15 Royal: The 6-4 Williams

On championship day, like 15 Open was Wednesday at AAUs in Orlando, just about every player who steps on the court could be featured or written about in one way or another. Teams don’t make it to the gold bracket without the contributions of many and that’s what makes it so challenging to select just 10 players for the Day 4 All Red Hat Team. The goal is to highlight a daily team consisting of two players from each position – outside, middle, right side, setter and libero – who were our absolute favorite players of the day. Favorite doesn’t mean only a 5-star recruit or a familiar name. These are players who stood out to us for a variety of reasons, from amazing play to great energy or attitude or making key hustle plays. These are daily all-stars who really stood out the most to us for one reason or another. DAY 4 ALL RED HAT TEAM Amelia Mancino OH WPVC 15 Armour Black: It was a solid day for Winter Park, which swept Rev 15-1 Fuego before falling to Legacy 15-1 Adidas in the quarterfinals. Mancino was part of our Day 3 Show Stoppers. She’s an undersized pin who knows how to deliver against bigger blocks. She’s a feisty attacker, from swinging hard to blow blocks up or swiping off hands to cause frustration. She keyed WPVC’s close out of Rev, scoring three kills and a block late in Game 2. Reese Poerner OH Skyline 15 Royal: Poerner is a total gamer. She’s not the biggest or hardest hitter in the Skyline lineup, but she provides lots of value because of the way she allows for roster flexibility and more. She can play on the left or the right and Skyline was utilizing her on the former on Day 4. She also provides her share of offense and you know it’s frustrating to opponents that Skyline has yet another player who can deliver when called upon as she did reliably. Alia Schoonover MB Mintonette Sports m.51: I talked about the middle duos from Skyline, Legacy and Boiler Jrs – and for very good reason – earlier in the tournament and I would be remiss to not include the Mintonette pair here after their performance on Day 4. Schoonover is an offensive threat, capable of scoring in different ways, from the quick or getting out on the slide and letting loose. Defenses need to stay honest when she’s front row or else Mintonette is going to make them pay in system. Isabelle Thomas MB Mintonette Sports m.51: Thomas might not be the same threat offensively, but she changes the dynamic in the opposite way when she checks in. She’s a strong, physical blocker who is a wall at the net. She might not match other middles inch-for-inch, but she times her blocks well and was providing much-needed defense at the net for Mintonette. Taylor Clarke RS Skyline 15 Royal: Having a dominant right side is a game-changer and that’s why they next two made the cut. Clarke – a 4-star recruit from the Class of 2025 – is such a force across the front row with her ability to get up and blast balls. The lefty hits at ridiculous angles and causes so much stress on defenses to have to cover the whole court. Caroline Ward RS Boiler Jrs 15 Gold: Ward – a 5-star recruit from the Class of 2027 – has already been on the All Red Hat Team this tourney but what can I say? She would be a marvel and force in 16 Open. With her length and jumping ability, she’s as much a next-level talent as anyone can be. At times, she’s a shut down blocker with the way she can swallow a ball up with her long arms. On the attack, good luck. She leaps effortlessly and has a rocket for an arm. It’s a lethol combination. Lexi Shondell S Boiler Jrs 15 Gold: There were so many strong settting performances that any of them could have been written up here. Shondell – a 4-star recruit – has such great on-court demeanor and poise and that’s a big reason I’m going with her. She has total command of the offense and when in system Boiler Jrs is nearly impossible to slow. Madison Wehr S GP 15 Rox: GP fought off Top Select 15 Elite in three sets and then hung tough against Skyline before falling in the quarterfinals. Wehr showed her stuff in both matches. She ran a 5-1 against Top Select and was part of a 6-2 against Skyine. She’s a bit undersized compared to the other setters but she has nice hands and does well locating and connecting with all her hitters. Mallory Johnson L Far Out 15 Black: Far Out outlasted A5 15 Bob before running into Mintonette in the quarterfinals and getting swept. Johnson makes her second appearance on the All Red Hat Team. She’s such a smooth operator. She plays under total control. She never gets rattled and, as one opposing coach mentioned, always seems to be in the right spot. Emma Cugino L Mintonette Sports m.51: There were really good liberos not only competing in the gold bracket but in the tournament overall. Cugino stood above all. She’s a lights-out passer and defender. She’s steps ahead of the play and rarely gets caught out of position. She also plays with lots of fire and determination as she’s not backing down from the biggest hitters coming her way.

The wait? Worth it! It might have taken three days to get to the point where we were at Wednesday but the final day of competition in 15 Open at the AAU Girls Junior National Championships in Orlando is what dreams are made of! And I’m not even talking about this year’s national champion in Mintonette Sports m.51, which fended off the No. 1 team in the country in Skyline 15 Royal in three sets, 22-25, 25-23, 15-9, in the gold-medal match to end the tournament a perfect 11-0. There isn’t anyone who could have written a more entertaining, a more exciting script than the one that played out on Day 4 at the State Farm building on the campus on ESPN Wide World of Sports. Except for the fans of the 11 other competitors which did not get the golden ending produced by Mintonette, which is ranked No. 2 behind Skyline in our Top 50 National Rankings. That’s right. The championship match was a heavyweight bout between the top-two ranked teams in the country. And that wasn’t all! When the 15 Open division opened played four days ago, there were 15 teams from our Top 50 in contention. As for Wednesday’s 12-team gold bracket, 11 were from our Top 50 with Rev 15-1 Fuego the only unranked team of the bunch. There was that, and also the fact that of the 11 ranked teams, they were among the 13 highest-ranked teams in the field to start with. The two to miss out were No. 11 AP 15 Adidas and No. 30 Jupiter Elite 15E. The rest of the top teams were all on hand to begin the last day of play, which included previously-mentioned Skyline, Mintonette, No. 3 Boiler Jrs 15 Gold, No. 8 Legacy 15-1 Adidas, No. 19 Tribe 15 Elite Cardinal, No. 21 GP 15 Rox, No. 25 Tri-State Elite 15 Blue, No. 26 Far Out 15 Black, No. 28 WPVC 15 Armour Black, No. 33 Top Select 15 Elite and No. 36 A5 15 Bob. It took until the quarterfinals to finally see two of those squads lined up on different sides of the net from one another, as the lack of upsets kept most of the ranked teams apart the first three days. Mintonette did advance to the gold bracket in part by beating No. 11 AP on Day 3, but that was about it. The mega quarterfinal match Wednesday featured Boiler Jrs taking on Tribe. Boiler was pushed early on the round before by Tri-State Elite, which made Boiler work extra time before winning in three, 23-25, 25-13, 15-3. It was really at this point a trend developed, as Boiler-Tribe was the last of the quarterfinals to wrap up and produced another three-setter, the same as both semis and the final in what was a fairytale ending from a fan’s perspective. Boiler Jrs and Tribe was that match where you didn’t know what was going to happen, with the way each side could go on mini-spurts to change the momentum and score. Tribe led 21-15, 23-19 and 24-22 in the opening set but that didn’t prevent Boiler from tying it at 24 all before Tribe hung on. The second set was the reverse, with Boiler going ahead 24-20 before Tribe reeled off four straight points and was positioned for a sweep. But Tribe was called out of rotation on set point and a it was on to a third set, with Boiler closing it out, 24-26, 26-24, 15-9. The semifinal clashes both had their background stories. For Mintonette and Legacy, it was a trilogy meeting with both teams winning and losing once against each other so far this season. Mintonette took it to Legacy at Windy City only for Legacy to get revenge earlier this month at the JVA Summerfest. The third meeting delivered the set of the tournament! And it was the only reason Mintonette even was still around, having held off two match points in an epic overscore before eventually prevailing, 16-25, 36-34, 15-12. Mintonette had eight – yes eight! – chances to put Legacy down in set two before Legacy had its first look at victory leading 32-31. Legacy earned one more opportunity to put itself in the final and a chance to win 15 Open for the second consecutive season here in Orlando. However, Mintonette went back in front 34-33 before winning on a Legacy hitting error three points later. You know what they say, if at first your don’t succeed, try 10 more times. It worked for Mintonette in Game 2. The other semifinal was about payback. Back in February when Skyline captured the 15s championship at the Triple Crown NIT there was one team it lost to. Can you guess who that might have been? You got it! Boiler Jrs! Don’t’ think for a second that either side had forgotten what took place five months ago. We certainly didn’t. When Boiler let a lead slip away in Game 1 it looked like perhaps they were gassed from their victory over Tribe, but that was not it. Boiler Jrs settled down and played a strong second set, forcing a third and putting themselves that much closer to defending their 14 Open gold medal they took home a year ago here. Yet, Skyline was not having any of it in the final set, building an early lead and maintaining before ending it, 25-22, 19-25, 15-7. That brings us to the showdown between the top two teams in the country. It wasn’t a tricky match to figure out from an Xs and Os standpoint. If Mintonette didn’t serve tough and keep Skyline off the net it was going to be a short outing. With Mintonette struggling with its own ball control, it was not a close opening set. But as Mintonette settled and the passing picked up, so did its chances at winning the match. Skyline played behind for much of Game 2 but couldn’t quite catch Mintonette at the