Athletes Unlimited is a non-traditional individual competition, but good old-fashioned teamwork paved the way for Leah Edmond to become its 2023 volleyball champion.
With pressure to stay atop the leaderboard riding on each of her final-week matches and Alli Linnehan nipping hard on her heels, Edmond and her hand-picked crew went 3-0, ringing up the crucial “win points” that helped put captain Edmond on the top step of the podium with 4,313 points, 565 more than her former Kentucky teammate.
Here’s how they finished:
1. Leah Edmond, 4,313
2. Alli Linnehan, 3,748
3. Brooke Nuneviller, 3,582
4. Natalia Valentin-Anderson
5. Morgan Hentz, 3,274
6. Bethania De La Cruz, 3,130
7. Lindsey Vander Weide, 3,118
8. Sydney Hilley, 3,114
9. Genesis Collazo, 2,80
10. Claire Chaussee, 2,939
Click here for the complete points list.
On Monday night, in the last of 30 matches over five weeks at Legacy Park in Mesa, Arizona, Team Edmond blitzed Team Linnehan (75-63 aggregate, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22), earning the maximum 180 win points. Rarely can a first set be called pivotal, but that unquestionably was the case.
Desperately needing to capture the opener to have a hope of coming from behind on the leaderboard in the make-of-break Bluegrass showdown, Linnehan’s crew had clawed back from a four-point deficit to go ahead 21-20 on a kill off the slide by middle hitter Molly McCage. That momentum proved short-lived as Team Edmond ran off the next four points. Opposite Genesis Collazo got a kill, middle Shelly Fanning capitalized on an overpass, Erin Fairs cut a shot into the middle of the net for a hitting error and Edmond scored with a booming spike into the deep third of the court. A side-out later, Fanning finished the set by burying a quick set from Puerto Rican standout Natalia Valentin-Anderson.
Failing to close the deal seemingly took the starch out of Team Linnehan (1-2 for the week) and the last two sets went in workmanlike fashion to Edmond and Co. Voted the first Most Valuable Player of the match was the energetic setter Valentin-Anderson, whose team hit .281, had two aces and made 16 digs. The 6-foot-2 Fanning, whose court time had been hit-and-miss in previous weeks, stepped up with 11 kills against one error on 20 swings, a hitting percentage of .500, and was the MVP2. Edmond earned the nod as MVP3 with 16 kills and 16 digs, achieving the noteworthy stat of notching double-digit kills in each of…
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