16U FIRE makes Gold Bracket in Leetonia (3/9/24)

This past Saturday, our 16U FIRE girls played in a one-day regional tournament at Leetonia High School. With some of these early morning starts, it’s common for a team to play without energy, consistency, or focus that early in the morning.

This was not that.

Our 16’s came out on fire, with a first-game win over Club Hollywood. After a break, they flexed a bit in an easy victory over Pioneer VBC’s 16R team. These two wins set up a pool-closing showdown of 2-0 teams to see who would earn a higher seed in the Gold Bracket on Saturday. Rogue330 found themselves facing a tough Ohio Valley VBC 16-Blue team that was the highest seed in our pool, ranked in the region’s top 30.

Fortunately, Rogue330 kept their poise and took an early lead and never looked back. The second set was tougher, as we had to learn to stay aggressive against a team that has earned come-from-behind wins before. Key serving runs by Summer Brown and Julie Underwood were met with some aggressive front-court play from Khyla Blair and Gracie Dale. Repeated sets and passes from Alexa Pablo and Summer Brown consistently put our team in position to score. The all-around contributions of Lilly Samaco, Emily Epperly, and Maddie Conn made for some terrific highlights for those viewing at home on the Facebook LiveStream. And nobody from Leetonia will forget the dangerous, well-placed hits from both sides by Abby Potashnik and Carlie Bennethum. “It’s hard to believe that Carlie and Abby are freshmen – they are so consistent, so aggressive, and so powerful in that front row for us,” said Gary Underwood, Rogue330 Club Director.

Rogue’s 16s went on to the Gold Bracket and faced a battle-tested team from Kidron VBC (Drost-Bachman) in a game we lost in two close sets. Kidron went on to finish second overall in Leetonia on Saturday, and proved too much for us. We look forward to a rematch in Sandusky!