AAU All Stars: 2024 selections and Most Valuable Player(s)
There are a lot of admirable prospects in Minnesota’s class of 2024, and many of them made a size-large impact this summer, but nobody garnered more attention locally, regionally and nationally than Olivia Olson Olivia Olson 6'1" | CG Benilde-SM | 2024 State MN and Katie Vasecka Katie Vasecka 6'1" | CG South Dakota | 2024 MN of Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA. These two very long, skilled and intelligent athletes are destined for greatness and are off to a terrific start. We are pleased to select the two as Prep Girls Hoops co-Most Valuable Players for the class of 2024.
Olson, who hails from Benilde-St. Margaret’s, and Vasecka, who is from New Prague, lead an impressive class of 2024 All Stars. This includes their fellow first-teamers Somah Kamara (Robbinsdale Cooper) of FBC North 2023 along with North Tartan Milan 2023 teammates Laura Hauge Laura Hauge 5'9" | SG St. Croix Lutheran | 2024 State MN (St. Croix Lutheran) and Emma Dasovich Emma Dasovich 6'1" | PF Valley Vista | 2024 MN (Minnetonka). If there was a sixth spot available it would surely have gone to Park Center’s Liv McGill Liv McGill 5'7" | CG Hopkins | 2024 State MN , who played an integral role in the success of Metro Stars Starks, the team that won both state and national titles in the 2022 divisions in August.
The 6’1 Vasecka is long and lanky and can play pretty much any position you want. She handles the basketball with poise and precision, has impossibly long strides, out-thinks defenders consistently and shoots it from everywhere. She also has terrific court vision and a high IQ. Add a big motor to the package and you have a truly elite prospect. In the early part of the season Katie may have been overshadowed a bit on the Fury as the larger world discovered Olson’s magic act. Down the stretch, however, it was Vasecka who was the dominant force. She can score the basketball any way you want, is a focused defender and an elite talent with a team-first orientation.
Olson is a pure athlete. She got hot early and often with a string of strong performances in Iowa that earned her a spot in the conversation as one of the top potential prospects in the 2024 class on a national level. The long and fluid Olson is a position-less player who led her high school team in scoring last season as an 8th grader. The 6-footer is so smooth, with incredible natural ability and a deeply impressive set of acquired tools. She has nice touch, terrific vision, a great sense of timing and the ability to make buckets from pretty much anywhere. Unfortunately Olson had to play the tournaments in the stretch run with a cast on her right thumb which hampered her shooting. At the end of the season she suffered an ankle injury, as well. Her body of work in the first few weeks, however, was second-to-none.
2024 ALL STAR TEAMS
The feel-good story of the summer as far as AAU teams go has to be Minnesota Stars Amundson. Seeded 12th at the AAU State Tournament, coach Greg Amundson’s girls knocked off a series of heavily favored teams to make it all the way to the finals and earn the certified ‘Cinderella’ designation. In spite of the group’s heroics not a single member of the team earned a spot on our All Star squads. That’s because the two kids who carried most of the mail for the Stars – Karley Franks and Ashton Safranski – are from North Dakota and are therefore ineligible for selection. The same would be true for incoming freshman Lila Posthuma of Minnesota Suns 2024 Bluestar. The lengthy forward is a scholarship-level prospect but she resides in Prescott, Wisc., so we can’t pick her either.
We have also had to leave out one of the very best players who competed with the 2024s this summer. That would be the uber-talented Tori Oehrlein of Crosby-Ironton and Suns Bluestar. Although she certainly doesn’t look like it or play like it, Oehrlein is actually a member of the class of 2026 playing two years up. You’ll be reading plenty about her for the next six years!
Congratulations to all of the All Star selections.
FIRST TEAM
- Olivia Olson Olivia Olson 6'1" | CG Benilde-SM | 2024 State MN – Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA (Benilde-St. Margaret’s)
- Katie Vasecka Katie Vasecka 6'1" | CG South Dakota | 2024 MN – Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA (New Prague)
- Somah Kamara – FBC North 2023 (Robbinsdale Cooper)
- Laura Hauge Laura Hauge 5'9" | SG St. Croix Lutheran | 2024 State MN – North Tartan 2023 Milan (St. Croix Lutheran)
- Emma Dasovich Emma Dasovich 6'1" | PF Valley Vista | 2024 MN – North Tartan 2023 Milan (Minnetonka)
SECOND TEAM
- Kadence Hesse Kadence Hesse 5'10" | PG Sleepy Eye | 2024 State MN – Minnesota Rise 2024 Geistfeld (Sleepy Eye)
- Liv McGill Liv McGill 5'7" | CG Hopkins | 2024 State MN – Metro Stars 2022 Starks (Park Center)
- Angel Hill Angel Hill 5'8" | PG Minnehaha Academy | 2024 State MN – Tayler Hill Elite (Minneapolis South)
- Marisa Frost – Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA (Centennial)
- Amy Thompson Amy Thompson 5'10" | SG Stillwater | 2024 State MN – Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA (Stillwater)
THIRD TEAM
- Anisa Longs Anisa Longs 5'8" | PG Mpls South | 2024 State MN – MN P.R.E.P Scott (Minnehaha Academy)
- Tori McKinney – North Tartan 2024 Ohnstad (Minnetonka)
- Nicole Maenke – Minnesota Suns Bluestar (Shakopee)
- Taylor Tool Taylor Tool 6'1" | PF Delano | 2024 State MN – Crossfire 2024 Robertson (Delano)
- Lauren Machacek – Minnesota Stars Gardner (Eastview)
HONORABLE MENTION
- Kiya Hegdahl Kiya Hegdahl 5'7" | PG St. Louis Park | 2024 State MN – Minnesota Stars Gardner (St. Louis Park)
- Morgan Miller – Metro Stars Barnes (Andover)
- Daviney Dreckman – Minnesota Rise 2023 Busse (New Ulm)
- Drew Buslee – Metro Stars Barnes (Eagan)
- Piper Engleby – Minnesota Suns Bluestar (Andover)
Top photo: Katie Vasecka Katie Vasecka 6'1" | CG South Dakota | 2024 MN (#23 in the back row) and Olivia Olson Olivia Olson 6'1" | CG Benilde-SM | 2024 State MN (#1) were the undisputed leaders of Minnesota Fury 2024 UAA. Their teammates Amy Thompson Amy Thompson 5'10" | SG Stillwater | 2024 State MN (front row left) and Marisa Frost (front row, second from right) were also named to the PGH All Star teams.