St. George, UT

Local girl’s volleyball standout Taylor Murphy was voted Top Server, while earning Gold Medals with her teammates on the Intermountain Youth Red Team. In the championship game, the International Youth Red beat the USA Select White in three games.

IYR girl’s volleyball team took three of the best awards: Taylor Murphy Best Server; Clotile Harris Best Attacker and Ray Mulitalo Most Valuable Player.

IYR played a total of eight matches during the four-day tournament in a best-of-five format. Only one game went to the fourth set. Although not all games were blowouts or easy, it was almost a perfect record. Along with beating the USA Select White team for the championship and the gold-medal, it was a great accomplishment.

The Intermountain Region Red team was the only regional team to play in the championship rounds in an International Volleyball Tournament played in the great city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

This really goes to show what tremendous local talent we have in the great Southwest. And we will continue to have great amateur athletes go on to colleges and some even play in the pro ranks.

This is truly exciting to see. The parents are proud as is St. George city and supporters everywhere in America.

The 2009 USA Volleyball High Performance Championship will return to the Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center, the same site that hosted the event in 2006 and 2007.  The 90+ team event features tournaments for both boys and girls that include teams from USA Volleyball Region HP teams, International teams and teams from the USA Volleyball High Performance pipeline.

GIY (Girls International Youth) Awards

Best Passer: Katherine Brooks, USA Select White

Best Blocker: Shelby Sullivan, USA Select White

Best Server: Taylor Murphey, Intermountain Region

Best Digger: Haley Pouliezos, USA Select Blue

Best Attacker: Clotile Harris, Intermountain Region

Best Setter: Taylor Sherwin, Florida Region

Most Valuable Player: Rae Mulitalo, Intermountain Region

Pictures with Taylor Murphey: There are 15 pages and sets of pictures and Taylor is in: page 2 of 15, 1st row-4 down; page 2 of 15, 2 row-3 down & page 8 of 15, 3 row-down 3

Click for photo’s: http://snipurl.com/oi26j