Girls volleyball: Absolute wraps up play at Nationals
By Shun Graves
IJ correspondent
CHICAGO >> Players from San Rafael’s Absolute Volleyball Club headed home Thursday, but they certainly left a mark on the Girls Junior National Championship.
The club’s top age-17 team opened bracket play with a victory punctuated by a fast-flying offense and a string of aces from Marin’s Jaden Hendrickson and Sadie Snipes. Although 17 Black ultimately barely missed Bronze in the National Division, the team wrapped up a season fueled by tenacity.
“We bounced back well,” 17 Black’s Zada Sanger said. “We keep a strong court no matter what happens. We stay locked together.”
Club teams from across the nation competed against each other in the championship, called club volleyball’s “Junior Olympics” and held at Chicago’s McCormick Place this year.
The 14 and 15 age groups competed last week. Absolute’s 14 Black made an impressive showing, finishing as the 10th-ranked team in Open. That puts the team — which features some Marin talents who will make their high school debuts this fall — in the top 10 nationwide.
“They are all well-rounded players,” 14 Black coach Jake Spain said. “There are not a lot of deficiencies in their game. They all can serve well. They all can pass well. They all block well. They all defend well.”
This week, Absolute’s 16 Black and 17 Black teams both finished in the top 20 of their respective National Divisions, a step below Open but still among the nation’s best teams. 16 Black fell to the first-ranked team 25-17, 25-23 in the initial round of Gold bracket play, finishing eighth in the division.
On Thursday morning, 17 Black opened Bronze bracket play with a feisty, two-set triumph over Union 17-1 UA. The Absolute team bounded to an early lead after split-second spikes by Sanger and Anaya Thrower. Sanger served an ace to seal off the first set of the 25-15, 25-16 victory.
“We’re a very well-rounded team,” Snipes said. “We have such a deep team where the entire bench is also amazing, can go in at any moment and fill any position that needs to be filled. That is honestly our biggest strength.”
Absolute’s opponent struggled to keep its defensive footing during the second set. Both Hendrickson (Redwood High) and Snipes (Branson School) logged multiple aces during the second set alone. An hour later, 17 Black returned to the court for the Bronze final match against Coast 17-Rafael, which had defeated Absolute in three sets earlier this week.
This time, Absolute faced an opponent with a tougher defense. Nonetheless, Sanger, Snipes and Preslie Yates harnessed deep spikes to lead the first set 12-5. Despite more offensive fireworks from Absolute’s Kinnari Atluru and Ally Black, the Coast team launched an ultimately unstoppable run, defeating Absolute 25-23, 25-16.
The game marked a bittersweet farewell for 17 Black, which missed an Open bid by two points earlier this year but kept improving its finishes at tournaments throughout the season. Some members will bid goodbye to the team; one, Sanger (Berkeley High) will play volleyball at the University of Pennsylvania this fall.
“It definitely leaves me hungry for more and excited to get to college,” Sanger said. “I wish we could’ve gotten out of it a different way, but I’ll just get back in the gym and keep working and make it better for when I get to Penn.”
Still, the championships provided one last time for 17 Black to showcase its offensive weapons. Spain, who also coaches 17 Black, praised Hendrickson’s “massive versatility” and Snipes’ “awesome” offense as the competition came to a close.
And as 17 Black’s members said their final goodbyes while leaving the cavernous convention center, they parted ways having brought an incredibly close-knit team and some audacious Bay Area talent to Nationals.
“We all have a love for the game and a love for each other,” Snipes said. “I think that helps us do our best.”