VolleyballMag is pleased to introduce the 2024 Girls Fab 50 list, the longest-running national awards platform that honors the top 50 senior-age players in the country.
Because I have been invited to shape the Fab 50 as I see fit, it is part recruiting list and part achievement list. If you are a top recruit and your state’s high school Player of the Year, for instance, you’re part of the Fab 50. If you declined to play your senior year of high school, or were injured, then passed on club ball to enroll early at the university you signed with, you are not part of the Fab 50.
Everyone in between? Well, hard choices had to be made.
Most, but not everyone, in the 2024 Fab 50 is a top-100 recruit. If you were all-everything in high school and club, you might have made the Fab 50 over another player with yet-unrealized superstar potential at the next level.
The Fab 50 includes 19 pin hitters, 13 middles, 14 setters and four liberos. California and Texas lead the way with eight and seven selections, respectively, followed by North Carolina and Indiana with four apiece, and Illinois and Florida with three each. Six other states, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Ohio, placed two each on the list. Traditional Midwest power states Wisconsin and Kentucky had just one apiece. Arizona, which has been a breeding ground for top talent the past 15 years, did not have any.
The players are listed with their last club, even if they enrolled early this year and skipped the club season. Triangle had the most Fab 50 picks with four. 1st Alliance and Colorado Juniors had three apiece. National champion Mater Dei of Santa Ana, California, had two Fab 50 selections.
Which college scored recruiting coups in this class? Florida inked five and Louisville signed three. Thirteen other schools signed two apiece, including Wisconsin, Penn State and USC, each of which landed one player in the national top five.
There is no consensus top player in this class. Indeed, anyone in the top listed below could have been No. 1. That’s how balanced this group is!
Here now are the top five, as voted on by my select panel:
1. Izzy Starck, 6-1 S/OH, Viera (Florida), Colorado Juniors, Penn State
2. Favor Anyanwu, 6-2 MB, Sachse (Texas), TAV, USC
3. Charlie Fuerbringer, 5-11 S, Mira Costa (Manhattan Beach, California), Mizuno Long Beach, Wisconsin
4. Ayden Ames, 6-4 MB/OH, Prosper (Texas), Drive Nation, Texas
5. Morgan Gaerte, 6-4…
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