The Appalachian Newspapers’ 2025 All Mountain Volleyball Team is comprised of players from the 15th Region, Jenkins, Buckhorn, Knott Central, Perry Central, Hazard and Letcher Central.

The 2025 All-Mountain Volleyball Team was voted upon by the Appalachian Newspapers’ Randy White, Steve LeMaster and Adam Mahan.

All Mountain 

Volleyball Player of the Year nominees:

Kylie Kinner — Paintsville

Miley Riddle — Shelby Valley

Lindy Gearheart — Pikeville

Taylor Baker — Knott Central

All Mountain Volleyball 

Player of the Year

Miley Riddle — Shelby Valley: Riddle had an outstanding junior season. She led the state in kills with 838 (Paintsville’s Kylie Kinner finished second with 828). Riddle helped Shelby Valley to its most successful season in school history as the Lady Wildcats finished the season with a 34-6 record. Shelby Valley won the 15th Region All “A” Classic and advanced to the state All “A” Classic Bronze Division finals, the 59th District Tournament, their first-ever 15th Region Tournament championship, a win over Knott Central in the opening round of the KHSAA Volleyball State Tournament and an appearance in the state volleyball quarterfinals.

All Mountain Coach of 

the Year nominees:

Misty Riddle — Shelby Valley

Dawn Kinner — Paintsville

Shae Cornett — Knott Central

All Mountain Coach 

of the Year:

Misty Riddle — Shelby Valley: Riddle helped Shelby Valley to its most successful season in school history as the Lady Wildcats finished the season with a 34-6 record. Shelby Valley won the 15th Region All “A” Classic and advanced to the state All “A” Classic Bronze Division finals, the 59th District Tournament, their first-ever 15th Region Tournament championship, a win over Knott Central in the opening round of the KHSAA Volleyball State Tournament and an appearance in the state volleyball quarterfinals.

All-Mountain 

Volleyball Team

Shelby Valley

Sahnia Linton

Talynn Johnson

Ryleigh Perry

Makaya Price

Lindsay Baldwin 

Paintsville

Kylie Kinner

Mallory May

Ella Wells

Addison Helton

Annabelle Blankenship

Pikeville

Lindy Gearheart

Carly May

Sophie Woods

Catharine Walters

Kyla Lee

East Ridge

Savannah Baldridge

Lily Stacy

Savannah Wallace

Olivia Stanley

Pike Central

Layla Johnson

Sadie Vaughn

Alyssa Hess

Molly Reed

Claire Stacy

Belfry

Baylor Hall

Makaylin Meade

Abrielle Swain

Phelps

Aerionna Pigman

Charity Mounts

Cloey Bevins

Johnson Central

Chloe Reed

Macie Clark

Mia Estep

Madi Conn

Leah Hall 

Martin County

No stats listed on the KHSAA website

Magoffin County

Karlee Wallen

Kellen Simpkins

Jaylee Reed

Abby Barnett

Betsy Layne

Jayden Jarrell

Jania Isom

Harlyn Slone

Aubrey Williams

Miley Burchett

Prestonsburg

Addison Wright

Ally Hamilton

Katie Slone

Kennedy Dixon

Floyd Central

Chloe Howard

Lydia Wallace

Caidence Lafferty

Rylee Daniels

Miley Thornsberry

Lawrence County

Brylee Stafford

Aryn Huffman

Kailyn Stacy

Hazard

Savannah Combs

Mallory Mitchell

Rachel Allen

Adyson Jent

Perry Central

Laney Davis

Lylah Sullivan

Meghan Asher

Kinley McGraner

Chloe Campbell

Knott Central

Taylor Baker

Zoe Miller

Samara Bailey

Ava Waddell

Avery Conley

Buckhorn

Ashlynn Adams

Chasity Turner

Haylee-Drew Blank

Jenkins

Abbigail Lilly

Peyton Wilder

Kassidy Bolling

Letcher Central

Evany Pack

Kelsi Holbrook

Calissa Lowe

Hanna Eldridge

Under Armour Next

Taylor Stanley

The new year will begin with a significant showcase for a player who could mean a lot to the Kansas volleyball team down the line.

Right-side hitter Taylor Stanley, a 2026 signee, will take part in the Under Armour All-America Game, an all-star match that purports to feature “the 28 best high school volleyball players in the country, hands down.” The event will take place at The Venue at UCF in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday and is set for livestreams on ESPN+ and the SportsCenter Next YouTube channel beginning at 3 p.m. Central Time.

Stanley will wear No. 23 for Team Roses, which is led by longtime Texas, USC and United States national team coach Mick Haley, as one of seven pin hitters on its roster. She is the only Kansan or KU pledge taking part in the event.

Stanley stands 6-foot-3 and has played for Blue Valley Southwest High School in Overland Park and the KC Power club team.

“Taylor definitely represents the best player in the area, and she’s choosing to be at her home school, and she wants to be a Jayhawk, KU coach Matt Ulmer said in a VBAdrenaline livestream for signing day, “and again hopefully people will want to follow that.”

She signed with KU in November and, according to her school newspaper, is set to enroll early, meaning she will join the Jayhawks not long after taking part in the All-America Game. VBAdrenaline.com ranks Stanley as the No. 12 overall player in the class and the No. 1 opposite.

“I don’t know what you don’t like about her,” Ulmer said on the livestream. “I really think there’s everything that you would want in an opposite. She can absolutely bring that. She can also score from the left, she can score from the back row, I mean, she’s going to be a six-rotation point scorer, and we know the names of the people that can do that at a high level, and I think that’s what she can bring.”

She has spent time representing the U.S. at the youth level, as she played with the under-19 national team, which competed above its age group at the 2025 FIVB Women’s U21 World Championship in Surabaya, Indonesia, in August. The U.S. went 7-2 with a ninth-place finish.

At KU, Stanley will be part of a six-player class that also includes pin hitters Tessa Dodd, Avery Poulton and Ryan Sadler and middle blockers Cydnee Bryant and Jaeli Rutledge. She may see significant action right away on the right side, in part because of the qualities Ulmer described and in part because of the offseason departure of all-conference opposite Jovana Zelenović.

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Written By Henry Greenstein

Henry is the sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as the KU beat writer while managing day-to-day sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (B.A., Linguistics) and Arizona State University (M.A., Sports Journalism). Though a native of Los Angeles, he has frequently been told he does not give off “California vibes,” whatever that means.

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