BLACKSBURG, Va. — Two Richmond County high school volleyball players will soon be loading up the bus and heading back to central Florida for another shot at a national championship.
Rising Richmond Senior High School juniors Georgia Grace Anderson and Emy Cooley traveled to Virginia Tech on May 25 and 26 with their Athletic Club of the Sandhills volleyball team and punched their ticket back to the AAU girls’ junior national championship.
It marked the second consecutive summer the ACS 16U Black team will play in Orlando, Fla., for a title.
Competing in the Maroon and Orange AAU Super Regional tournament at VT for head coach Brandon Blackburn, Anderson and Cooley helped the ACS team go 4-2 overall and to a second-place finish. That performance was good enough to qualify the team for nationals.
The lone losses, Blackburn explained, came to eventual 16U champion Coastal 16.
Opening pool play on Saturday, May 25, ACS defeated Wilson Elite in two sets, 25-15 and 25-18. Anderson and Cooley helped ACS follow up with another sweep, this time defeating Coastal NEC 25-16, 25-14. The team’s first loss came to Coastal 16 to close the day, a three-set decision that saw Coastal pull out a 15-11 win in the third frame.
The following day, Blackburn said his “team battled hard in the Gold Bracket,” starting with a 2-1 win in the quarterfinal round against another Coastal 16 team. ACS won the first set 28-16, and rallied to take the third set 19-17.
In the semifinal against Coastal 15, ACS Black won in straight sets, 25-21 and 25-23. After falling to Coastal 16 for the second time in as many tries, the U16 team ended up with a a 35-24 overall record, including two Gold Bracket wins, three Silver Bracket victories and a regional championship.
For Anderson, this will be her second time going to the AAU national tournament, and she hopes that another year together with her team will better prepare ACS. She explained that the majority of her teammates have spent the last three to four years playing for Blackburn and ACS 16U.
“I’m really excited to go back to nationals this year,” Anderson, a middle hitter, said. “Getting a nationals bid at our last tournament makes it even more exciting than last year. We have worked all season and this year’s team has a very strong passion for volleyball.
“Last year was our first time at nationals and we had no idea what to expect,” she continued. “The teams were tough and brought some good competition — this year I expect the same exact thing . I feel like we’re better prepared and we’re hoping to bring a good performance to Orlando.”
Although she was on the team a season ago, Cooley will be participating in the the nationals tournament for the first time. Last year, Cooley was out with an injury and didn’t get a chance to compete. This time around, she’s hoping her camaraderie with Anderson will give ACS a shot at making a deep run.
“I’m really excited to experience playing at nationals this year,” Cooley, the team’s libero, explained. “All of my teammates enjoyed it last year and I can’t wait.
“It’s awesome getting the chance to play with GGA at Richmond and with ACS,” she continued of Anderson. “At libero, I get to cover her and it’s exciting when I make a pass and she gets a kill. We’re really close on and off the court and I love our energy when we play.”
The 2019 AAU girls’ junior national championship will be held from June 24 through June 28 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports and the Orange County Convention Center. Pool play for ACS Black begins on Tuesday, June 25, and bracket play and the championship will wrap up on Friday, June 28.
Both girls expressed their excitement for not only the tournament in Florida, but their junior season with the Lady Raiders. Both will enter their second season at the varsity level under head coach Ashleigh Larsen, as preseason workouts will pick up later this summer.
