October 31, 2024.- The race for the 2024 Athletes Unlimited Pro Volleyball Championship could not be tighter coming out of Week Four.
The crown is up for grabs between Brittany Abercrombie and Betty De La Cruz-Mejía while the third- and fourth-place medals could be anyone’s game.
Here’s how each team shook out the win points in Week Three to create the most contentious finish in league history:
- Team De La Cruz-Mejía: 3-0, won six sets (420 Win Points)
- Team Abercrombie: 2-1, won five sets (320 Win Points)
- Team Hentz: 1-2, won five sets (260 Win Points)
- Team Member-Meneh: 0-3, won two sets (80 Win Points)
Mover of the Week: Madi Bugg
While challenging, it’s never too late to make a run up the leaderboard and Madi Bugg made an 11-spot leap breaking into the top 25. She took advantage of her first consistent opportunity as the starting setter for a team and led them to victory. Captain De La Cruz-Mejía selected Bugg with her sixth pick and the first setter on her Week Four orange roster, indicating we’d see more of Bugg.
Bugg played in all nine sets, dishing 116 assists in three games, second-most of any setter in Week Four. She also tacked on 31 digs and facilitated her offense to a 3-0 week to stack her win-point earnings. Her offensive weapons hit .349 and averaged less than five hitting errors as a team per game. Bugg earned an MVP 2 vote, totaling 772 points for her on the week.
Her draft stock rose too. Bugg was taken with Brittany Abercrombie’s third overall pick at the Week Five draft.
First-time and second-chance captains
Making what could be two of the most crucial moves on the leaderboard after Week Four are Madi Kingdon Rishel and Dani Drews.
Kingdon Rishel will lead a team for the first time in her AU career, despite being one of the top performing athletes in the 2024 season. Kingdon Rishel desperately needed Win Points. She stands third in the league in Stat Points, second in MVP Points but 37th in win points.
She also had her best match of the season on Monday night, earning 405 leaderboard points in a single game. She had 20 kills with only four errors and seven digs. Kingdon Rishel rose four spots to be the Blue team captain for the final weekend.
On the other hand, Drews re-enters the captain’s spot after struggling her first go-round back in Week Three. Team Drews was 0-3 last time and only won two sets, dropping Drews to ninth place. Playing alongside De La Cruz-Mejía, Drews was the top point earner of the week, amassing 885 total points. It pushed her up eight spots and now she’ll have a chance to redeem her role with a new team as the purple squad’s captain.
Who will take home the hardware?
Simply put, either Abercrombie or De La Cruz-Mejía will wear the 2024 AU Pro Volleyball crown. They separated themselves from the rest of the pack early and have only widened that margin through their consistently elite play. Not only do Abercrombie and De La Cruz-Mejía rarely lose, but they also don’t have a bad night. They have been the ultimate foes throughout the season and will have to battle for each point in the last three games to earn the top spot.
Abercrombie, an opposite, would be the first player to earn the title who is not an outside hitter. De La Cruz-Mejía would also make history as the first AU Pro Volleyball player to win the championship twice (and only the second AU Pro Sports athlete to do so across all leagues).
The third and fourth-place medals are wide open for the taking. Only 242 points separate 10th place from third place on the current leaderboard. Fumbling the win points as a team could create major waves on how the leaderboard shuffles in the last three competitions of the season.
Week Five Schedule
Week Five competition begins on Friday, Nov. 1. Team Kingdon Rishel will take on Team De La Cruz-Mejía at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on FanDuel Sports Network and VBTV. Then, Team Drews will face Team Abercrombie at 10:30 p.m. ET / 7:30 p.m. PT.
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