-
The Harmony Horns U14 volleyball team took third place in July’s 50th AAU Boys National Volleyball Championships in Orlando out of 58 club teams. PHOTOS/KATIE WILLIAMS -
Middle blocker Gavin Williams makes a key play during the tournament. PHOTOS/KATIE WILLIAMS
As the spring 2022 season was wrapping up, Harmony Middle School volleyball coach Randy Schafer was approached by the some of parents of his team, asking him to consider forming an AAU team to give players an opportunity to continue playing and developing through the summer and fall.
Schafer, who was moving over to become the head boys coach of the Harmony High School boys team, was at first hesitant – not knowing how his high school schedule would interfere with the thought of coaching a team at the club level. Still, he felt an obligation to find a solution for his team that had won three straight Osceola County Middle School championships.
“We had a talented team and several of them were scheduled to play with other teams at the club level,” Schafer said. “But some practice schedules conflicted with parents schedules and other players were having a hard time finding a club to play on. It was a last minute thing, but we decided to form a team and put together a schedule.”
Thus the birth of the Horns 14-Under Volleyball Club came about. As with any new venture, Schafer and his coaches faced a lot of growing pains, including finding practice facilities and times and raising money to keep the team affordable for the kids.
“Travel ball in any sport can be expensive and we wanted to keep it affordable for the kids. Fortunately we found four sponsors that stepped up to cover a lot of our costs to keep our fees low,” Schafer said. “We ended up renting the high school and middle school gym at Harmony, but with school going on facility availability and practice times were really limited.”
But one thing that wasn’t limited was the talent on Schafer’s club. Led by Porter Munns, Brayden Buehler, Saylor Urban and Jameson Benken, the Horns 14-U turned some heads by winning a highly competitive tournament in Winter Park. They would late go on to win two tournaments in Tampa. The performance gave the team enough confidence to enter the 50th AAU Boys National Volleyball Championships in Orlando in July. The national tournament featured more than 1,000 teams across various divisions. The Horns 14-U competed in the 58-team Club division. In the tournament, which began July 1, the Horns dropped their first two matches of the tournament.
“At that point, I was ready to tell the kids to just relax and enjoy the experience of playing in a national tournament,” Schafer said. “But when talking to a coach from another team, he sort of told me that the tournament wasn’t set up that way. Teams were rated based on who they played and could still make the knockout round based on their overall record and who they played.”
The Horns rallied to win five matches over the next two days – defeating two undefeated teams in the process. That ended up qualifying them for the knockout round of 16 on the final day of the tournament, where they would face some tough completion.
“Although the tournament featured three divisions, open (elite), premiere and club, teams were permitted to play in the division of their choosing. Open was the top level, composed basically of the national travel teams. Premiere was the essentially the second level and club was for teams like us,” Schafer noted. “But because teams could play any tournament they wanted, even the club level had some teams that normally would be in a higher division. For example, Atlanta Extreme – who won the Club Level Championship – is a national travel team.”
With a 5-5 record, Harmony did earn a spot on the final day and defeated a team from North Carolina, 25-11, 19-25, and 15-13 to advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, they beat a Florida team 28-26, 10-25, 16-14 to advance to the semifinals. Midnight finally struck in the round of four, as they fell to a team from South Carolina, 16-25, 14-25. For the tournament, the Horns finished in a tie for third overall.
Individually, Buehler and Benken were named to the All-Tournament Team for the Club Division, two of only 13 players named to the all-star squad.
“It was really a great tournament and a great finish, given one of our best players (Munns) moved away before nationals,” Schafer said. “With many of the players moving into the ninth grade it provided them a place to play and develop before the start of their high school careers.”
