Orlando 16 South Rox Red falls in final
The Orlando/Tampa Volleyball Academy’s 16 South Rox Red team’s run in the 44th Girls’ Junior National Volleyball Championships came to an end in Monday’s championship match.
The Asics Munciana Ninjas of Muncie, Ind., defeated hometown OTVA 25-23, 25-23 to win its age group at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports.
Munciana finished the tournament with a 13-0 record, dropping only two sets in a tournament that spotlighted players mostly coming off their sophomore seasons of high school play.
OTVA finished 11-2 for the tournament and went point-for-point against the powerhouse Indiana club. However, the Orlando squad struggled against Asics service runs and fell a few points short of pulling off the upset.
“We just had to play a couple of points better than we did,” Orlando coach Sindee Snow said.
“We didn’t play every point and that’s what kind of got us in the butt. … Nobody expected us to be in the finals here. I think they pulled together and fought hard. We were right there.”
Savannah Vach, an allarea performer for Oviedo High School, had seven kills and 11 assists for OTVA.
Samarah Hill, an LSU commit and Hagerty High performer, had a team-high 11 kills. Torey Baum, a libero for West Orange, contributed 10 digs.
Vach, Hill and Morgan Romano were named to the 16 Open All-American Team.
Against a high-caliber team, OTVA set the tone at the beginning of the match, jumping out to a 6-2 lead. But the Ninjas turned the momentum with a 7-0 run behind the service of Bonnie Bostic.
OTVA clawed its way back, taking a 16-15 lead before Asics tied things up at 23-23. The Ninjas won the set via a service ace by Asia Goins.
It was much of the same in the second set.OTVA struggled in the middle as the Ninjas went on another 7-0 run to take a 14-8 lead. Snow called two timeouts during the run, frustrated by how her team was giving away easy points.
“When they want to win, they turn on a different level,” Snow said. “And when you’re in the finals of a national tournament, you can’t turn it on and turn it off.”
The team responded, making a furious rally to once again pull within 24-23. But it was too little too late as Bostic scored the final point of the match.
OTVA now turns its attention to the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship in Minnesota. The team will leave in the next couple of days and 16 Open Division play begins Saturday.
Snow thinks an unexpected run to the finals in the AAU Tournament bodes well for her club for play in Minnesota.
“I think we gained a lot of confidence from the tournament,” she said. “I think this is something to tell them, ‘Hey, we are good,’ versus us trying to prove that we are good every time we step on the court.
“A national championship would’ve been great, but we were two points away in each set and just need a little bit more from them. They’re fantastic, very proud of them.”
Top Select 16 Elite was the second Orlando-area team among seven that advanced to Monday’s championship bracket. That squad lost to Milwaukee Sting 16 Gold in an extremely tight three-set quarterfinal thriller 23-25, 28-26, 16-14 to finish 9-2 for the tournament.
Top Select 18 Elite had some of the area’s top players back from last season’s 17s AAU nationals championship run but had to play without the Sentinel area high school player of the year, Stephanie Samedy, and finished 10th in the 18 Open Division.
Samedy, a recent East Ridge High School graduate and Minnesota recruit, was sidelined by a stress fracture that was diagnosed a week before the AAU tournament opened.
Top Select lost its first five matches but won three of its final five on Sunday and Monday.
“I think the reason we had a hard time in the beginning is we were trying to find ourselves after losing the best player in the country,” Top Select coach Blake Rawlins said. “It’s hard to replace her on short notice. She was our captain, our leader and [our] go-to player.
Asics Munciana Samurai of Indiana won the title in that age group.