Upper Cumberland's 7th Grade TN Rush AAU National Champions

[bobcatfan#1]

The Upper Cumberland's 7th grade TN Rush, AAu Team won the National Championship when they participated in the AAU National Tournament July 3-8th in Kingsport, TN.

 

They competed against 27 other teams from around the nation and won the tournament undefeated.

 

Playing on the team were: Abbi Bilbrey, Chloe Burton and Bailey Evans all of Pickett County; Haylee Johnson of York Elementary (Jamestown), Shelby Baily of Allardt (Near Jamestown), Kennedy Agee and Kaydee Ferrell of DeKalb County, Hailey Cronk of Rickman (near Livingston) and Kyndal Ludick of Macon County.

 

Games:

TN Rush 38 Illinois Lady Lightning 33

TN Rush  60 Georgia Metros 25

TN Rush 53 Alabama Lady Legends 21

TN Rush over Murfreesboro Force in Sweet 16

TN Rush 56 California Paye's Place 46 in Elite 8

TN Rush 49 Pennsylvania In The Zone 44 in the Final Four

TN Rush 47 Indianapolis Lady Impact 39 for the National Championship!

 

The team was coached by Josh Agee and assisted by Lisa Cronk and had an overall record of 37-3.

 

Other tournaments they won:

Zaxby's March Madness

TN Rush AAU State Qualifier

AAU D2 in State Qualifier

 

Congratulations on this outstanding achievement!

 

 

 

 

[burnalittle]

Congrats!  Upper Cumberland always has some great talent!  Unfortunately these girls all split up in High School so there will be no dominant force in the HS ranks.  This makes the 7th grade on even keel with the 8th -!2th grade talent in TN.  Great talent that is not necessarily concentrated in any certain area!  Kudos go to whoever was able to get all these girls on the same team!  Now the challenge becomes how do you keep them all together for 4 more years!

[tnhoosier]

Congrats! Upper Cumberland always has some great talent! Unfortunately these girls all split up in High School so there will be no dominant force in the HS ranks. This makes the 7th grade on even keel with the 8th -!2th grade talent in TN. Great talent that is not necessarily concentrated in any certain area! Kudos go to whoever was able to get all these girls on the same team! Now the challenge becomes how do you keep them all together for 4 more years!

 

That is very unrealistic. These kids came from what will be 5 or 6 different High Schools (Pickett Co , Livingston Academy, Dekalb Co, Macon Co and either or possibly both York Institute and Clarkrange).

 

It would be like keeping all the Nike Flight kids together at one HS.

 

Niow if you are talking about keeping them on the same AAU team, I don't see after a national championship any reason why they would go to another organization. In fact, it is more likely that a good number of high talent Upper Cumberland kids that played for other organizations would want to, for the first time be competitive with the big name teams and also save money & time by playing for the TN Rush.

 

TN Rush has made great strides over it's time as an organization, so much so that they are competing with (and in a couple of age groups actually beating) the much larger Flight, Pride, Force, Fire, Sol, etc programs.

 

The fact that the TN Rush is even in the conversation with those programs is a testament to the founder, Matt Ferrell, the coach of this team, Josh Agee, all the coaches and most importantly the kids from the Upper Cumberland who make up the Rush organization.

Edited July 31, 2016 by tnhoosier

[bobcatfan#1]

Unreal that even an accomplishment like this gets  flack!!!!!!!! Guess what? The teams that they played were also made up of all stars from different schools. And, 3 of these girls will play together at PC, but so what? This isn't about high school teams anyway! It is about AAU teams made up of outstanding players! Unrealistic? They played by AAU rules. It was real. So where did you get this nonsense about high schools anyway? What "big name teams?" I think the AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONS are a BIG NAME team. Just go to another site and let these well deserving young ladies be appreciated as representing how great Upper Cumberland basketball is and has been for 35 plus years.

[bobcatfan#1]

Quote from the Herald Citizen:

Matt Ferrell: "We beat a team from California in the elite eight round, and then in the final four, we beat a team  out of Chicago which was really good,"     â€œThese teams are pulling kids from these huge metropolises, and we’re pulling from a very small area in Tennessee. It was pretty special, what they were able to do.â€

[tnhoosier]

.

Edited August 1, 2016 by tnhoosier

[tnhoosier]

Unreal that even an accomplishment like this gets flack!!!!!!!! Guess what? The teams that they played were also made up of all stars from different schools. And, 3 of these girls will play together at PC, but so what? This isn't about high school teams anyway! It is about AAU teams made up of outstanding players! Unrealistic? They played by AAU rules. It was real. So where did you get this nonsense about high schools anyway? What "big name teams?" I think the AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONS are a BIG NAME team. Just go to another site and let these well deserving young ladies be appreciated as representing how great Upper Cumberland basketball is and has been for 35 plus years.

What are you talking about?. What I said couldn't have been more in defense of these kids and the Rush program. Don't understand why you think anything I said was unflattering or anything else negative. My post was in response to the one before mine that said the task now would be to keep those kids together for 4 more years, I answered both HS and AAU scenarios. And if that person was referring to these kids staying together in HS I said that was unrealistic since they are in multiple school systems and it is.

 

You won't find a bigger fan of that bunch of kids and what they accomplished than me, my kid played on it.

[Playerscoach]

What are you talking about?. What I said couldn't have been more in defense of these kids and the Rush program. Don't understand why you think anything I said was unflattering or anything else negative. My post was in response to the one before mine that said the task now would be to keep those kids together for 4 more years, I answered both HS and AAU scenarios. And if that person was referring to these kids staying together in HS I said that was unrealistic since they are in multiple school systems and it is.

 

You won't find a bigger fan of that bunch of kids and what they accomplished than me, my kid played on it.

Should have moved the thread to the middle school board.