Maple Mountain is the No. 1 team in 5A girls volleyball RPI this week, and for good reason.

The Golden Eagles displayed their prowess on Thursday with a 3-0 sweep (25-18, 25-14,25-17) of defending 5A champion Timpview.

So why is Maple Mountain good?

Coach Adam Longmore said it’s because of this team’s versatility.

Nowhere is that more apparent than with senior outside hitter Marley Pratt, who has a bigger variety of shots than Baskin Robbins has flavors of ice cream.

At 5-foot-8, Pratt plays libero on her club team and that’s the position she’ll play when she and her twin sister, setter Morgan, matriculate to Weber State next season. For Maple Mountain, Pratt plays outside hitter and kept Timpview off-balance all night long with an assortment of cuts, tips, rolls and one power swing that nearly took the head off of an unsuspecting T-Bird.

“My mom runs a volleyball club,” Marley Pratt said. “She’s played and coached me since I was little. She made play every position and I feel like that really helps me learn a bunch of other shots. And yeah, I’m small for my position. In high school, they need me to play outside. So I just have to do what I can to try and get kills.”

Longmore’s club finished fourth in last year’s Class 5A tournament and had to replace some terrific players, including outside hitter Gracie Keisel, libero Jettlee Iona and middle blocker Siale Unufe. The younger players who toiled on JV last season have stepped up nicely, particularly junior libero Coco Denison, senior outside Emma Bailey and senior right side hitter Rachel Workman.

“We have a lot more balance to our offense this year,” Longmore said. “We were really outside-heavy last season, like a lot of teams, but we can rely on everybody to get it done in the front row. We can rely on anybody on the bench to come in and do a good job.”

One of Marley Pratt’s tricky roll shots gave Maple Mountain a 10-5 lead in Set 1 and a Bailey kill got the home team out to a 22-13 advantage. Workman scored to get to set point and another great swing from Pratt ended the set at 25-18.

Set 2 was back and forth until Denison took to the service line. She had a pair of aces in an 8-1 run to give the Golden Eagles a 15-8 lead. Down the stretch, Bailey had back-to-back swings for points and Kayla Marshall got the winner at 25-14.

It was 9-3 in Set 3 when Marley Pratt took one down the line with power and 11-3 when Bailey and Marshall teamed up for a block. Longmore substituted freely the rest of the way and Maple Mountain moved to 7-2 overall, 5-0 in Region 7 play, its only two losses to the top two teams in 6A (Skyridge and Lone Peak).

“One of the biggest things we have that a lot of teams don’t is depth,” Longmore said. “If we’re going to be the best team in the state, we have to have the second-best team in the state, which I would argue maybe we do.”

The Golden Eagles are leaving Thursday for Nevada and their first trip to the prestigious Durango Fall Classic, seeded No. 2 in their bracket.

“It’s going to be tough,” Marley Pratt said. “There’s going to be a lot of big teams and we’re not very big. But I think when we just work hard every play and every day and play for each other, it’ll be fun. I think we can be really good if we can just focus on controlling what we can control and working hard every day.”

Timpview (12-10, 4-1), which turned over virtually its entire roster and has a new coach this season in Kristen Bailey, will host Salem Hills in a Region 7 match on Thursday.