Kylee Baker was recognized as Best Attacker for Club Fusion 17 Black, which won the 17s championship at the PrepVolleyball.com Classic on Sunday

Club Fusion won both the 17s and 18s division at the PrepVolleyball.com Classic Sunday, taking a huge leg up on winning the Classic Cup. Fusion has a 20-point lead over M1 in the Cup standings after beating theMinneapolis club in the championships yesterday and will try to keep its imposing lead as the 15s and 16s events get underway today. 

Schedule makers anticipated the finals showdowns when they installed M1 and Fusion as the top two seeds in each division and the teams embraced the role as favorites, defeating everyone they faced en route to the finals. Only M1 18-1 brought a loss to the finals and that was to Fusion in four sets in Saturday’s power pool play.

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Not that there weren’t some perilous moments for the unblemished teams. Fusion 18 Black dropped the first two sets to Capital and its outstanding setter, Elizabeth Koberstein, on Friday before rallying. Capital wound up seventh, winning the Three Musketeers division. Fusion 17 Black was taken to three games out of the chute by a very good Milwaukee Sting team and went four with Wisconsin Juniors. Both of those teams wound up tied for third place. M1 17-1 was tested on Friday by Wisconsin Juniors then survived match point against versus Mad Frog in the Sunday quarterfinals to win on two clutch swings from Dominique Thompson.

The 18s were up first on championship court and the atmosphere was intense from the start. Both teams had something to prove. M1, which won two national Junior Olympic qualifiers in as many attempts in 2009, wanted to show that it was better than the team that lost in four to Fusion the day before. Fusion, which won the Great Lakes Power League, wanted to close out a big tournament with a win after falling in the semifinals in its three other major tests.

M1 OH Kara Pioske struck for the Minnesotans early in the first set, helping M1 take a 3-1 lead. High flying junior Stephanie Holthus delivered her second kill of the match to give the serve back to Fusion. With setter Taylor Brauneis behind the line, Fusion added five more points, including a Holthus kill and block, to seize a 7-3 lead.

M1 rallied behind its fine outside hitter Amy Braun. The Northern Iowa signees scored thrice to help M1 go back in front, 9-8. The lead was short-lived, however. Another Holthus kill, followed by two from Sondra Parys and two from Molly Turk gave Fusion a lead it would not relinquish. Michelle Graham, who was a force all weekend from the right, tried to keep M1 in the set with several booming spikes, but Fusion was on its game. With Julie Jeziorowski passing exceptionally from her libero position, Brauneis had her pick of attackers and all delivered. MB Erin Johnson had two big kills that turned a tenuous 15-14 lead into a more comfortable 18-14 margin as Fusion slowly pulled away during the end game, winning 25-21 on Johnson’s booming slide attack.

Johnson’s two massive kills and a block helped Fusion gain control in the middle of Game 2.  To that point, M1 had stayed close thanks to the play of middles Megan Lambertson and Ariel Carlson, but Johnson’s roof and serve subsequent serve, which produced an overpass that Holthus put away, made it 14-9 Fusion. Johnson added an ace that increased the advantage to six and M1 never threatened, despite four kills from Braun and one from MB Margo Schwartz. Two kills apiece from Sam Thrower, Johnson and Parys helped Fusion stay comfortably in front. The Chicago team took the set, 25-18, on a serving error to take a commanding lead in the match.

It appeared that Fusion would close out M1 in three when Turk’s great dig led to a Parys kill and a 17-15 Fusion lead in Game 3. But a four-point M1 run, that started and finished with Pioske kills and included a great dig from libero Sam Dale, block from Graham and ace from setter Leah Johnson, turned the set around. Dale, who won the tournament’s Best Digger award, was at her best late in this set, thwarting Fusion time and again. Her big dig set up Carlson’s kill that extended M1’s lead to 24-20. After a Holthus kill gave Fusion the serve back, Fusion’s serving error sealed the 25-21 M1 win and sent the teams to a fourth game.

M1 came out fired up to send the match to the limit, taking a 4-2 lead on Graham’s sweet cross-court shot. But another long serving run from Brauneis spelled doom for undermanned M1, which played all weekend without three key contributors, setter Anna Olson, OH Karlee Lursen and RS Bentley Mancini, who were attending graduations ceremonies. The 8-4 Fusion lead grew to an imposing 17-9 bulge before a five-point M1 burst, keyed by Graham, made things interesting.

Holthus put an end to M1’s run with a blast through the block and scored again to counter Graham’s kill as Fusion got to 20 points with a five-point lead. Any hopes of another M1 rally were broken thanks to a stunning sequence from Turk, who followed a great Brauneis dig with a timely dump, then combined with Thrower on a block before finishing with a right side rip. Leading 23-15, Fusion’s championship was inevitable and accomplished thanks to Turk, whose final kill gave Fusion the 25-19 win and the title.

Fusion coach Eric Schulze said the key to victory was ball control.

“They went after Julie Jeziorowski, who struggled a bit yesterday, and she stuck it the whole match,” he said. “That put us in system, which gave us an opportunity to use all of our attackers and create a lot of one-on-one opportunities.”

Turk, who was tremendous from her position on the right, said Brauneis deserves a lot of the credit for what she was able to accomplish.

“She was doing an awesome job that match so you’ve got to credit her,” she said.

The core of this Fusion team had never before been in a championship match at the Classic and was fired up from the start.

“It’s a big deal for the kids who wanted to convert one of these big tournaments,” said Schulze. “They fell short in the semifinals on President’s Day, fell short in the semifinals at NJCs, fell short in the semifinals at Pre-Nationals. I think they were tired of falling short in these big tournaments against the top quality teams. They wanted to close one out.”

Braun, who won the Best Attacker award, said M1 learned a lot from the tournament.

“We got to play more than three games before JOs and saw what our endurance level was like and saw what it takes to pull out a longer match,” she said. “I thought we did really well being shorthanded because of graduation. We expect them to come back and totally help us.”

Braun said nothing was going to stop Fusion in that match. 

“They played perfect it seemed like,” she commented. “They’re really a good team. We tried to pick up our talk and go for every ball. It just wasn’t our day.”

***

Just as ball control spurred Fusion 18 Black’s win, ball control was key to Fusion 17 Black’s sweep of M1 17-1 in the 17s championship match.

“We played consistently and were in system most of the time,” said Fusion coach Steve Williams. “When we’re in system we’re hard to beat.”

Sparked by strong blocking from Jacqui Seidel, Fusion jumped on M1 at the outset of Game 1, taking an 8-2 lead before a Kayla Koenecke kill put a temporary stop to the onslaught. But Fusion, gunning for its first championship of the year, had no interest in letting M1 back into the set. Controlling the ball beautifully thanks to libero Storm Melnick, DS Jennifer Ask and its standout quartet of Kara Wehrs, Amy Wehrs, Kylee Baker and Seidel, Fusion seemed to score however it wanted to whenever it wanted to. Two kills on the right from Kara Wehrs followed by an Emily Harris block made it 23-12 Fusion, which won, 25-13, on Baker’s overpass kill.

Games 2 and 3 were more of the same. Seidel and Amy Wehrs were unstoppable in the second game, a 25-15 thrashing, while Baker and Kara Wehrs played prominent roles in the 25-17 Game 3 win that completed the sweep.

M1, which won the Mideast Qualifier in March, was never in the match, though setter Amanda Konetchy, OH Courtney Fautsch, libero Natalie Pascutoi and Thompson in the middle had good moments.

“It was a thorough butt kicking by a very good Fusion team that’s extremely balanced,” said M1 coach Thanh Pham. “They had outstanding ball control. No matter how we tried to get them out of system, they found a way to get a swing off the ball. We tried to move our best hitters around and present different match ups but it didn’t matter. They were still able to put up a solid block and take everything that we threw at them.”

Williams calls his team the “cardiac kids” because he never knows what to expect, but was satisfied with how his team played in the finals.

“Everyone played well in that match,” he said. “We did the skills of volleyball and everybody did their job.”

“It feels amazing to win,” said Baker. “We’ve been practicing a lot and working really hard these past couple of weeks. It helped and with the passion and motivation we have, we worked like a team out there.” 

“Last year, I was on 16 White and we got third,” Seidel recalled. “This year it was fun to take the next step and win it all. The first game we were so determined to do it and win our first tournament of the year and we just rolled from there.”