Women’s volleyball in the USA is having its main character moment right now. Beyond the buzzing college battles, pro leagues are turning heads and spiking hearts. Enter stage left: Pro Volleyball Federation and Athletics Unlimited Pro Volleyball (AU Pro), already serving up drama and fierce rallies. But wait—there’s another contender, League One Volleyball (LOVB), ready to step into the limelight. After four years of build-up, LOVB is finally set to debut next year. The plot twist? Brittany Abercrombie and AU Pro Volleyball have already set the perfect stage for its big arrival. How, you ask?

For five adrenaline-pumping weeks, AU Pro Volleyball has had fans glued to their seats, marveling at the chaos, comebacks, and curveballs. Oh, and did we mention? AU Pro flips the traditional playbook on its head, and that’s part of its magic. So, what’s their unique format all about? And who exactly is Brittany Abercrombie?

Brittany Abercrombie keeps the legacy flowing in the AU Pro Volleyball 

On November 4, the US volleyball world celebrated when Brittany Abercrombie took the title of the 2024 AU Pro Volleyball Championships. Any special reason? Coming from the list of newcomers in the league this season, the 28-year-old maintained her supremacy thoroughly, and on the D-day, she hit the leaderboard with 4,521 points. The best in all three categories! Furthermore, she is the first non-outside hitter to take the crown in the contest’s history. However, those facts leave a lot of questions. First, why was an individual player crowned, replacing any squad? The regular volleyball contests follow such a format, but not AU Pro Volleyball. Then what does it follow?

Starting in 2021, the AU Pro Volleyball Championship banks on the individual player-centric format where the player accrues points. Yes, that sounds innovative! And the innovation is there in the structure as well. In the AU Pro Volleyball Championships, no fixed team structure exists. Rather, the top-scoring players can pick up their teammates to draft their team every week. But how will that justify the roster? Let’s dive in and break down this wild format.

The AU Pro Volleyball Championships’ roster houses 44 players. From there, four different teams are formed. Now each top-scoring player gets the chance every week to build her team and is designated as the captain. And this streak continues for five weeks, i.e., the entire season. In the end, the top scorer among all the players is crowned with the title. Obviously, Brittany Abercrombie went through a similar line to take her flowers. However, there were barriers. 

Coming from the USC volleyball and joining the line of an Olympic champion 

In her time with USC Volleyball, Brittany Abercrombie had the honor of winning her Pac-12 Conference Player of the Week award. However, those were her days in the 2016-17 season. But her transformation as a player has made her something bigger than that. How? After winning the 2024 AU Pro Volleyball Championships title, the Puerto Rican joined the ranks of Jordan Larson, the 2020 Olympics champion. Notably, in the inaugural season of the league, Larson claimed the same title. Isn’t that something amazing? Nonetheless, Brittany had to counter one of her predecessors, Bethania De La Cruz-Mejia, to win the title. 

This season kicked off with Brittany Abercrombie and Bethania taking the court as teammates in the opening week. But in true AU Pro Volleyball fashion, their paths quickly diverged as they stepped into captain roles for different teams. The duo clashed four times on their journey to the top, each snagging two wins—a rivalry worthy of the highlight reel. In the end, Brittany captained her gold team to victory, while Bethania secured a strong second place with 4,142 points.

For Abercrombie, this achievement was a crowning moment in her career, and at just 28, it was nothing short of remarkable. But true to her humble nature, she shared, “It was a lot of hard work and I also have to thank my teammates for doing so well throughout the whole thing, but it feels kind of unbelievable.” She added with genuine surprise, “I wasn’t expecting this when I came here to AU.” And with that, the curtain fell on an electrifying season. Yet, the unique and unpredictable format of AU Pro has left fans craving more—who could blame them?