Team Edmond dominates first week of AU; Edmond, Hentz, Linnehan, Hilley next captains
What was Leah Edmond’s reward for putting together the most dominant team statistically in Athletes Unlimited’s volleyball history?
She had to bid farewell to a crew that instantly clicked and hunker down to draft a new squad.
Team Edmond rewrote the record book in numerous categories during the opening week of AU’s third season. Most significantly, it recorded the most lopsided aggregate score over three sets when it steamrolled Team Nootsara 75-44 (25-14, 25-16, 25-14) on Monday night. The previous low for points in a match had been 54.
Edmond and Co. went 3-0 during their matches on Friday, Sunday and Monday at Legacy Park in Mesa, Arizona, and rang up 400 out of a possible 440 “team points” awarded in AU’s non-traditional scoring system, dropping one of nine sets.
Team Edmond filled the top five positions on the first-week leaderboard and would wind up being the springboard for all of the players who qualified as the captains for Week 2:
Edmond, the former Kentucky standout outside hitter; outside Alli Linnehan, who as Alli Stumler led Kentucky to the spring 2021 NCAA title; Morgan Hentz, the libero who won three NCAA titles at Stanford; and setter Sydney Hilley, who guided Wisconsin to the 2021 NCAA championship.
Those four will draft their teams Tuesday.
Hentz, the 2022 AU defensive player of the year, capped a spectacular first week with 19 digs and four assists and was voted the most valuable player in Monday’s first match, worth 60 points. She is the first libero to earn the honor of leading and drafting a team. A member of the USA national-team program, Hentz set the AU match record for digs with 25 in Team Edmond’s victory over Team De Le Cruz (77-73 aggregate, 33-31, 19-25, 25-17) on Friday and totaled 57 during the first week.
Leah Edmond passes as Alli Linnehan looks on/Jade Hewitt, Athletes Unlimited
Team Edmond’s first line of defense had made its mark on Sunday night, setting an AU match record with 18 blocks, four more than the previous standard, during its sweep of Team Valentin-Anderson (75-58 overall, 25-20, 26-19, 25-19). Middle hitter Danielle Hart (Hilley’s former Wisconsin teammate) and setter Hilley led the block party with five each. Hilley’s total set an AU record for a setter. Hart ranked fifth on the first-week leaderboard, falling 64 points short of becoming the first middle-blocker AU captain.
Not to be overlooked was the contribution of captain Edmond, who was voted one of the three MVPs (MVP-1 on Sunday) in each match and finished atop the Week 1 leaderboard with 1.052 points. She held a 112-point margin over Linnehan, the MVP-1 on Friday with 19 kills and 12 digs. In Monday night’s match, Edmond was MVP-2 after logging an otherworldly (for an outside hitter at this level of competition) .520 hitting percentage, posting 16 kills on 25 swings with two errors, and chipping in five blocks and seven digs.
In her maiden voyage at the captain’s helm, Edmond made draft choices that fit within her comfort zone, including Hilley, Hentz and middle Jenna Rosenthal, the Marquette product who had played with Edmond during AU’s exhibition tour against college programs in the spring.
“It was helpful that the majority of us had already played together,” Edmond said. “(This team) had college teammates and people who I played with the last three years. That combination of really young players and (veterans) was the greatest part of the team. Coming into the first practice, we kind of already knew each other.
“Sidney knew what I liked, she knew what Jenna liked, she knew what Dan (Hart) liked, she knew how Morgan played defense. Having a bunch of people who already knew the tendencies, we vibed so quickly, and it was so easy.”
The result was a starting seven that overwhelmed its foes and hogged the leaderboard, ranking 1-through-5, 7 (opposite Genesis Collazo) and 8 (Rosenthal).
“My whole starting lineup is top seven right now and the rest of my team, even the ones who didn’t play or are injured, are top 15,” Edmond said after her team’s romp in Monday’s opening match. “I’m going to miss them dearly because I know everybody else is going to tear that team apart or my teammates are going to be captains. But it was the greatest opening weekend, the best way to start.”
Even though Athletes Unlimited is an individual competition with its roster of players shuffled in each of its five weeks, teamwork remains a foundational component, as demonstrated this week by the squad decked out in purple jerseys.
“We didn’t need just one player to be a star,” Edmond pointed out. “Everybody was a star in their own way: blocking, defense, hitting, serving. Everybody played their part and that’s all you can want from a team. They were dug in from the beginning. Anytime I asked for something, they gave it back to me and even more.”
The final match of the first week produced the second “golden set” in AU history when Team De La Cruz and Team Valentin-Anderson wound up tied at 69 in aggregate points after three sets. Bethania De La Cruz (15 kills on 32 attempts with two errors, two aces, eight digs), the veteran Dominican great, settled the matter in emphatic fashion when she spiked a ball nearly straight down to win the tiebreaker 5-3. Team Valentin-Anderson, which went 0-3 in Week 1, won the sets battle in regulation (26-28, 25-16, 25-18) but lost the aggregate war.
De La Cruz, the 2022 AU champion, wound up compiling the most individual “stat points” in opening-week action with 440, nine more than Edmond, but her overall total of 761 was No. 6 overall. Her team went 1-2. Lefty opposite Willow Johnson, the former Oregon standout, figures to be coveted in the draft again after ranking ninth among the leaders, and with a stat-points total that tied for fourth.
Team Nootsara finished 2-1, with a sweep of Team Valentin-Anderson (75-63 total, 25-20, 25-20, 25-23) and a one-point aggregate victory over Team De La Cruz in which it only won the third set (70-69 total, 21-25, 24-26, 25-18) before being blitzed by Team Edmond. Thai setting great Nootsara Tomkom and OH Claire Chaussee, who led Louisville to the 2022 NCAA title match, were 10th and 11th on the leaderboard.
Jenna Rosenthal attacks for Team Edmond/Jade Hewitt, Athletes Unlimited
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