Last week 3 teams from the Santa Barbara Volleyball Club competed in the 43rd Annual AAU National Championships in Orlando, Florida. This marked the end of the 2015-2016 club volleyball season for all teams.

The 16 Blue team was competing in the 16 Club division and put together their best tournament of the season, earning them a 5th place overall finish! Coach Dillan Bennett said of his team, “It's always such a tough task to get a team to peak at the right time during the season, and I believe we prepared very well for this event and did just that. Our best play as a team happened this last week in Orlando, and we couldn't be more proud of how the girls represented our club and our community.” In the first day of competition the team went 3-0, with sweeps over Legacy 16-Rockstar (28-26, 25-23), Mauloa 16’s Scott (25-10, 25-16), and Woodlands Revolution 16-2 National (25-8, 25-18).

The second day brought more success, with another 3-0 finish, again all in sweeps, with wins over Cincinnati Volleyball Academy 16-Elite (25-20, 25-15), USA Michigan 16-1 National (25-12, 26-24), and Illini Elite 16-Black (25-19, 25-22).

The third day saw a significant increase in the level of competition, the team went 2-1 for a second play finish in their pool. Their wins were again Choo Choo City VBC 16-Black (29-27, 25-18) and Asics KIVA 16-Black (25-16, 24-26, 15-10), before their first loss of the tournament to Power 16-1 (22-25, 25-20, 4-15). This set up a crossover re-match versus day 2 competitor Ilini Elite 16-Black (21-25, 25-17, 15-8) for which the team got pumped up for and played some amazing volleyball in the win! With that win, the team was in the Gold Bracket for the final day of competition, automatically guaranteed a top 14 finish.

On their fourth and final day of competition, the team came out determined and won their first round match up against COA 16-Red (25-21, 25-20). The next match against 1st Alliance 16-Black (19-25, 14-25) didn’t end as the team had hoped, as they ran out of steam against a bigger, strong, powerful team. The team’s strong tournament earned them a 5th place finish out of over 140 teams!

Coach Bennett had nothing but praise for his team after the tournament, “We were pleasantly surprised to see our offense produce at such a success rate, mainly due to how our serve receive was so strong. Sophia Fay, Caylin Zimmerman, and Danica Minnich did a great job keeping us in system, while Kelly Bickett ran a diverse offense, which kept the defense off balance. Caylin, Danica and Ady Colburn were our three offensive weapons, terminating rallies regularly. While our offense was a threat this week, our defense and serving kept us in most of the 12 matches we played. Ally Mintzer and Danica led us in aces from the service line, and Kate Willingham and Ady put up a wall at the net. Izzy Mallet, Kendall White, and Sophia were our three defensive scrapers all week, keeping many rallies alive and setting consistently in transition. In specialized roles, Jenna MacFarlane and Kendall came off the bench to provide solid ball control and defense in order for us to set up certain situations for defense against some of the stronger teams; Jenna at the net hitting and blocking, and Kendall in serve receive and defense. The progress this group has made makes our coaching staff very proud. I feel we challenged them on a physical and mental level all season long, and I think they will walk away with a better understanding of how to play volleyball, rather than playing volleyball.”