V-Hawk Xtreme 15 Adidas and FC Elite 15 Navy Take 15 Club and 15 Open Titles
With the inaugural Prep Dig Gauntlet taking place over the weekend, two Wisconsin teams defended their home turf in taking the 15 Club and 15 Open titles. V-Hawk out of La Crosse took home the 15 Club title and FC Elite out of Appleton brought home the 15 Open Championship.
15 Club
Throughout the whole weekend it seemed that V-Hawk Xtreme and Next Level (Milwaukee area) were on a crash course for the championship. V-Hawk survived a three set match to Iowa Select out of the Davenport area in opening pool play, winning 16-14 in the third set, they went on a roll from there not dropping a set the rest of the weekend.
Next Level survived two three set matches to teams from New Wave out of the Chicagoland area in pool play and then was defeated Saturday night in the crossover with V-Hawk. They would come back on Sunday to defeat Iowa Select 15 Red before setting up a rematch with V-Hawk for the championship.
Congratulations to V-Hawk Xtreme 15 Adidas out of La Crosse as champions of the Prep Dig Gauntlet 15 Club Division. #PDGauntlet pic.twitter.com/3LD8fC7WkZ
— Prep Dig Events (@PrepDigEvents) June 2, 2019
V-Hawk was led by the big arm of Amelia Quist from the outside who was putting some heavy velocity on her swing with the sets coming from Grace Clark and Marissa Pederson. V-Hawk also had some strong swings and blocks coming from Sadie Treptow. Next Level had some big swings from Natalie Erdmann along with solid play from Natalie Holzhauer who was a setter/right side and libero, Claire Erlandson. In the end it was V-Hawk who was able to sweep Next Level 25-19, 25-18 in the title match.
Next Level 15s is our 15 Club Runner Up pic.twitter.com/xxhAXx6m9X
— Chris Fitzgerald (@PrepDigChris) June 2, 2019
15 Open
FC Elite had been off for over a month since a strong showing at the Northern Lights Qualifier, finishing fifth in the Open division, but that didn’t seem to slow them down as they came out strong from the start. After dropping a set to Sting 15 Burlington there was no looking back, sweeping their way to a championship. Balance and depth is the name of the game for FC Elite who was propelled by two Appleton North preps in Brianna Cantrell on the pin and Berkley Mischler in the middle. Karissa Kaminski is the fiery libero who has committed to Dayton. However, it was some role players who also provided some big swings with Mary Satori and Bella Van Lannen. Nebraska Juniors 15 Black finished runner up with a rugged path to get to the title game with an opening loss to I AM VBC (WI), a three set win against Royal (WI), and New Wave 15 Tsunami (IL). With a match up against Chicago Elite in the semifinals, Nebraska Juniors was able to punch their ticket with a 25-19, 25-23 win before falling to FC Elite 25-16, 25-23. Brenna Schmidt is a big time playmaker out of the middle causing a mismatch for the opposing side of the net, but its the defensive play of Presley Liberty and Harlei Cole.
View this post on InstagramCongratulations FC Elite on winning the 15 Open Championship of the #pdgauntlet
View this post on InstagramCongratulations to @nebraskajrs 15 Blacjk on finishing 2nd at the #pdgauntlet