The draft for Week 2 of Athletes Limitless’s volleyball season successfully dismantled the purple gang that terrorized its competitors within the opening spherical, spreading the wealth of its seven starters among the many league’s 4 groups.
The juggernaut crew within the purple jerseys assembled by captain Leah Edmond to kick off AU’s five-week schedule produced all 4 of the captains, that standing having been decided by the gamers who completed 1 by 4 on the leaderboard.
In a format that shuffles its squads weekly, outdoors hitter Edmond, OH Alli Linnehan, libero Morgan Hentz and setter Sydney Hilley morphed from Week 1 teammates to the opposition. After the draft carried out on Tuesday, Edmond had retained reverse Genesis Collazo, Hentz would proceed to defend behind center hitter Jenna Rosenthal’s enormous block, and Hilley might keep linked with center Danielle Hart, her faculty mate at Wisconsin.
Odds are lengthy that any of the 4 new lineups will match Staff Edmond’s first-week outcomes, a uncommon 3-0 file in matches and 8-1 mark in units that generated 500 out of a potential 540 “crew factors,” 60 for every aggregate-score match victory and 40 for every profitable set.
Week 2 schedule
Athletes Limitless’s second-week round-robin will probably be held Friday, Sunday and Monday, with 5 matches streamed on ESPN+ and the nightcap on Monday aired on cable ESPNU. All occasions are Japanese:
Friday, October 13
Staff Hentz vs. Staff Linnehan, 7 p.m., ESPN+
Staff Edmond vs. Staff Hilley, 9:30 p.m., ESPN+
Sunday, October 15
Staff Hilley vs. Staff Linnehan, 7 p.m., ESPN+
Staff Hentz vs. Staff Edmond, 9:30, ESPN+
Monday, October 15
Staff Hilley vs. Staff Hentz, 7 p.m., ESPN+
Staff Linnehan vs. Staff Edmond, 9:30 p.m., ESPNU
The factors issue
The crew part had such affect on the leaderboard that the highest scorer in particular person “stat factors,” explosive veteran Dominican outdoors Bethania De La Cruz, who tacked on 100 “MVP factors,” might climb no greater than seventh, slotting behind the 4 Week 2 captains, plus Collazo and Hart. Thus ended De La Cruz’s file streak of 10 for carrying an AU captain’s mantle that dated to the inaugural 2021 season.
Hentz parlayed 500 crew factors, 321 stat factors and 60 MVP factors to a third-place end on the leaderboard, turning into the primary libero to qualify as an AU captain by its scoring system that’s weighted towards pin hitters and setters. She was seventh in factors general as a rookie in 2022, when she was honored as defensive participant of the 12 months. The previous Stanford three-time All-American set the league file for digs in a match with 25 on the primary day of the 2023 competitors at Legacy Park in Mesa, Arizona.
“The crew Leah put collectively had very nice chemistry and communication, which made everybody’s lives simpler on the courtroom,” Hentz instructed us. “We actually targeted on our serve-pass sport in addition to protection. Our blockers did a unbelievable job all through all three matches of placing up such a stable block that it simply made it really easy for our defenders to learn the attackers. I additionally appreciated it that if we didn’t win a degree, we moved by it fairly rapidly. We didn’t maintain on to that final level, we had been about what’s in entrance of us.”
Hentz was so intent on the duty at hand that she “didn’t even understand I used to be that top up the leaderboard till after our final match.”
“Each time I’m enjoying with AU, I strive onerous to not take a look at the leaderboard,” she stated. “I’m simply attempting to win (whereas) having enjoyable on the courtroom with my associates. What’s essential to recollect about AU is that you just earn essentially the most factors by profitable. As a result of our (first-week) crew had a lot success, it put me in an excellent place to grow to be a captain.”
Hentz’’s draft technique
Hentz had the second choice within the draft and snapped up De La Cruz, the 2022 AU factors champion, after Hilley made outdoors Claire Chaussee the primary choose. Chaussee, the previous Louisville star, made her AU debut and he or she completed eleventh within the standings, whereas compiling 31 kills with 12 errors on 89 makes an attempt, a .213 hitting proportion.
“I used to be positively stunned,” that De La Cruz was there, “and really feel fortunate that she’s on my crew as a result of she’s a unbelievable participant,” Morgan stated. “As a libero, I do nothing for the offense. So I actually wanted to go for some robust attackers first, and construct round it from there. Getting two outsides was my first precedence.“
Accordingly, Hentz tabbed rookie outdoors Brooke Nuneviller, the previous Oregon star who’s from Phoenix, within the subsequent spherical, seventh general, in no small half due to the familiarity issue.
“Brooke and I had been within the national-team health club the final two summers,” she stated. “I like the best way Brooke performs with a number of coronary heart, extraordinarily scrappy, and he or she’s an awesome passer. Betty is a unbelievable passer, too, so they need to complement one another very well.”
The 6-foot-5 Rosenthal was picked up within the third spherical (tenth general) after Hilley had taken Hart, her former Wisconsin teammate, off of the board with the earlier choose.
“Jenna did an superior job for us in Week 1,” Hentz stated. “She’s only a huge presence on the internet. Jenna will get her arms in the best place, however she’s additionally extraordinarily offensive and may actually terminate.”
The setter place was crammed subsequent when she chosen veteran Natalia Valentin-Anderson, who was lauded by Hentz “for the power she brings,” and her management abilities.
Hentz was extremely reluctant to make any predictions on how the crew she crafted may fare, noting the rarity of match sweeps on this format and that AU competitors will be, “a set-to-set form of factor.”
“I’m trying ahead to connecting with my crew increasingly more,” she stated, “after which bringing our greatest in terms of Friday.”
Different highlights of the Week 2 draft noticed reverse Willow Johnson (15, 17 and 18 kills in her opening-week matches) taken No. 3 general by Linnehan, who added slick veteran setter Nootsara Tomkom (sixth general and one of many first-week captains) within the second spherical and center Ali Bastianelli (eleventh general) within the third. Hilley snagged dynamic pin hitters in Chaussee and high-flying Yossiana Pressley (fifth general) plus Hart. And with the fourth and fifth general decisions, Edmond opted for expertise in setter Alisa Childress and center Molly McCage.
Rookie center Anota Adekunle was injured early in her first match final week and is out for the season, so the draft numbered 43 gamers. On Thursday, Athletes Limitless signed center Blake Mohler and she’s going to be part of Staff Linnehan as its eleventh participant. The 6-foot-2 Mohler was a collegiate standout at Purdue, final enjoying there in 2019.
The rosters are on the finish of this story.
A future on residence courts
Hentz, 25, has performed one season {of professional} volleyball abroad (with a crew in Dresden, Germany, in 2020-21) and was frank in saying that she has no want to try this once more.
“I wasn’t completely satisfied abroad,” she stated. “I’m so much happier after I keep within the States, nearer to household and associates. I simply wasn’t completely satisfied being so distant. The chance that Athletes Limitless supplied within the U.S.(in 2022), I took benefit of that. I discovered my love for the sport once more.
“I simply figured that, for me, enjoying within the U.S. is simply much more enjoyable. Actually, liberos don’t make a lot cash signing contracts abroad. So I will be extra financially steady staying right here as properly.”
After the brief AU season, Morgan has signed to play for the Atlanta Vibe within the startup Professional Volleyball Federation. A few of her Vibe teammates will embody Edmond, Linnehan, Bastianelli, Adekunle and Shelly Fanning.
Representing the red-white-and-blue in main worldwide competitions, even the Olympics, stays a chance for the 5-foot-9 Hentz, who has been within the health club with coach Karch Kiraly’s USA national-team program in 2022 and 2023. She and Justine Wong-Orantes had been the 2 back-row specialists when the USA clinched its 2024 Paris Olympics bid final month.
“I’ve actually loved my time with the nationwide crew and I really feel as if I’ve grown so much, purely by enjoying in opposition to one of the best on the earth,” she stated. “It’s such an honor and an enormous, enormous alternative.
“It’s a year-to-year factor for me. I’m simply attempting to have enjoyable with it, and if I’m nonetheless given the chance to be within the U.S. health club, I might like to be there. But when they’re entering into a special route, then I perceive. The U.S. has so many proficient gamers, a humiliation of riches, and that call actually is as much as the teaching employees.”
