PREPS

Three future Division I players are among the first and second teams

Swingers, blockers, diggers and facilitators. The Journal’s 2025 All-Metro volleyball team has it all.

The Journal’s choices include three future Division I players among the top 12 (six first-team choices, six more on the second team).

Cleveland’s Azlynn Tittmann, who has signed with Boise State, is one of this season’s three first-team hitters. 

The 6-foot-1 senior registered 332 kills, an average of 4.6 kills per set.

Joining Tittmann as hitters on the first team are La Cueva junior Jula Utash and St. Pius senior Alyssa Bendinskas.

The 5-8 Bendinskas had nearly 300 kills for the Class 4A state champion Sartans, plus 49 aces and 251 digs. She is headed to Austin Peay to play beach volleyball at the next level.

Utash is the latest in a long line of dynamic hitters to put on the La Cueva colors. The junior powered her way to 370 kills last season as the Bears reached the Class 5A state championship game.

Bendinskas was not the only St. Pius Sartan to make the first team. Senior Maya Perea is generally regarded as the top libero in New Mexico, and she makes a return appearance on the Journal’s All-Metro group following a season in which she dug 331 balls.

And Utash was one of two Bears to make the first team. Her setter, freshman Charlie Ferguson, is the first-team choice this season. Ferguson did a brilliant job of feeding her hitters in the La Cueva attack, averaging over 9 assists per set. She finished with an impressive 758 assists for the season.

The first team is rounded out by Albuquerque Academy middle Kiara Brown. The sophomore was a six-rotation player for the Chargers, and finished the year with 341 kills, 223 digs and 60 blocks.

The third of the D1 signees this season is Albuquerque High hitter Kaelynn Ashley, who also is headed for Austin Peay in Tennessee, but to play on the hard courts. Her younger sister, Ayva, is the second-team setter.

Rounding out the second team are sophomore outside hitters Avery Steele from Hope Christian and Rowan Jaime from Academy, plus senior middle Aaliyah Simpson from Cleveland, and La Cueva libero Embrey Eisele, also a sophomore.

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
2025 ALL-METRO VOLLEYBALL TEAMS

FIRST TEAM

• Jula Utash, 5-8, jr., OH, La Cueva
• Azlynn Tittmann, 6-1, sr., OH, Cleveland
• Alyssa Bendinskas, 5-8, sr., OH, St. Pius
• Kiara Brown, 6-0, soph., MB, Albuquerque Academy
• Maya Perea, 5-5, sr., libero, St. Pius
• Charlie Ferguson, 5-9, fresh., setter, La Cueva

SECOND TEAM

• Kaelynn Ashley, 5-10, sr., OH, Albuquerque High
• Avery Steele, 5-9, soph., OH, Hope Christian
• Rowan Jaime, 5-10, soph., OH, Albuquerque Academy
• Aaliyah Simpson, 5-11, sr., MB, Cleveland 
• Embrey Eisele, 5-4, soph., libero, La Cueva
• Ayva Ashley, 5-9, jr., setter, Albuquerque High

The Kentucky Wildcats volleyball team won their 26th straight match on Saturday, and none are bigger than this one. The Wildcats are on their way to the Final Four after beating Creighton 3-0 (25-19, 25-13, 25-18).

Brooklyn DeLeye and SEC Player of the Year Eva Hudson were fantastic once again for Kentucky. Both had some huge kills at key moments in the match. DeLeye totaled 18 kills and 12 digs, while Hudson added 13 kills of her own.

The rest of the Wildcats roster was huge as well. Molly Tuozzo had a plethora of big-time digs that kept rallies going. Kassie O’Brien had a big day as well, setting up her teammates.

The Kentucky volleyball team  used service pressure to beat Creighton on Saturday to advance to the Final Four. While serving is the first part of the equation, being able to get set defensively is the second part, and the Cats did that extremely well against the Blue Jays.

UK had 62 digs in the match and eight total blocks. After the match, UK head coach Craig Skinner praised his team’s defensive effort.

“To hold a team like that to .066 is a lot to do with your defense, and you know, it’s a mentality,” Skinner said. “We have to establish a defensive mentality in practice.  We hammer balls at them all the time, they’re flying all over the gym, making plays. We have a couple rules, we’ll reason why you don’t go for the ball; that would be out of bounds, hear the whistle, or some sort of danger is in the way. Outside of that, you better go for the ball. But it’s just, you have to set that in practice, and we’ve spent a lot of time this year, just hammering that into our team, and it’s, man, it’s fun to watch, too.”

Kentucky senior outside hitter Eva Hudson thought she and her teammates responded to the coaching staff’s challenge.

“Craig asked us to be relentless all evening,” Hudson said. “That sort of defense is so frustrating, one of your best shots and it being dug up. That was our mindset every time.”

Junior outside hitter Brooklyn DeLeye also thought that the coaches did a great job of putting together an effective game plan for Saturday’s match.

“Props to the staff, I mean they really had a good game plan going into the match and I think we just executed that at a high level,” DeLeye said. “Even if Creighton was making changes throughout the match, they were still telling us every single time we were at the net what to do.”

Creighton head coach Brian Rosen said after the match that Kentucky’s defense made it very difficult on his team.

“I just thought their defense tonight was the difference,” Rosen said. “They were an arm and ball back up. We ended up with nine blocks. I thought we could have had 18 tonight. They covered so well, just kept plays alive long enough for their outsides to terminate eventually. And so again, I just I give them a lot of credit for that.”

Defense wins championships, and on Saturday, that was true for Kentucky.