Allie Adams played an integral part of a major run by a SWMN Junior Olympic VB team that did something no one thought was possible at the national tourney
The Southwest Minnesota Junior Olympics 15-1 Volleyball Team was the last group anyone expected to be playing for a national championship this summer. Even members of the team probably doubted it.
After all, they entered the fourday AAU Girls’ Junior National Volleyball Tournament in Orlando, FL, as the 90th-ranked team in the Classics Division — that’s 90th out of 90. But they eventually proved that rankings mean nothing by working their way to the finals and winning the whole thing.
The team won all but one of its 13 matches throughout the tournament, and the one team that found a way to beat them was the very squad they faced in the championship match. That team was from Kansas City.
The SWMN JO’s trailed 10-6 at one point in the final set before taking a 12-10 lead. They got down again, this time at 14-12, but once again rallied and were able to win the championship.
“It was match point for the other team and we came back and won it,” Adams said. “It was so surreal. “This tops everything. It was crazy. Me and one of my teammates literally said a prayer on the sidelines when it was 14-12.”
Adams, in her third year with the SWMNVB program, was one of 12 girls out of 45 who tried out to make the select team. Tryouts for the team were last November, and the team began practices in late January.
Adams admitted she wasn’t very confident she would make the squad after her tryout performance.
“I didn’t think I’d make the team at all,” she said. “I didn’t do very great at tryouts.”
But make the team she did.
The team, coached by Erica Jones and McKenzie Tolk, practiced three nights a week between its tournaments, which were held in a number of Midwest cities.
“This is the first year they had a winter season, too,” said Allie’s mother, Abbie. “We had four tournaments before the regular JO season started. It’s a very long season.”
Needless to say, the competition at this level was top-notch.
“It was definitely nerve-racking playing against these teams,” Allie said. “I thought we were going to get crushed (at nationals) — we were the last seed. They thought we were the worst team there!”
The seedings are determined by a team’s results in the qualifying tournaments, and “they didn’t do well in qualifiers because they played up,” Abbie said. “Southwest is very good at that — they make them play older girls to challenge them … but in most qualifiers, they did not play very well.”
While that experience made them better players in the long run, it also resulted in a less-than-stellar season that put them at the bottom of the seedings for the national tournament.
“Our regular season was not great, but at nationals we put the hammer down,” Allie said. “We were playing so good.”
Volleyball isn’t Allie’s only sport in high school, but it is the one she is most passionate about. She played middle in high school during her sophomore season at TMB, and played outside and middle back with the JO team.
The team is the fifth SWMNVB squad to win a national championship since 2018 and is the first 15s team to achieve that goal.
Allie is one of a number of TMB volleyball players on SWMNVB teams. Alli Dolan (14-2 team), and Braelynn Kirk and Melaina Ankrum (both 16-2) also compete.
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It was definitely nerve-racking playing against these teams. I thought we were going to get crushed (at nationals) — we were the last seed. They thought we were the worst team there!
— ALLIE ADAMS
