Amy Achesinski is used to towering over the competition.

At 6-foot-1, the Butler High School junior is a powerful inside presence for the Golden Tornado girls basketball team.

But as a member of the Rock Solid 16-and-under AAU hoop team, she was dwarfed by some of the biggest and best inside talent in the nation at the AAU nationals last week in Orlando.

"It was definitely different," Achesinski said. "I felt like one of the smaller people out there."

Such is the nature of AAU basketball, particularly the brand Rock Solid plays.

Never one to turn down an opportunity for a test, Rock Solid coach Posey Rhoads set out this summer to repeat the feat he and his team accomplished last season, finishing in the top four at the 15-and-under national tournament.

Rhoads, the former Slippery Rock University men's basketball coach and an assistant for the Slippery Rock High girls team, entered his squad in as many tournaments as he could - locally and elsewhere - in preparation for the national tournament.

The team certainly won their fair share of them, as Rhoads said Rock Solid played about 45 games this summer and won 40 of them.

Rock Solid had almost its entire roster intact from last season, when it steam rolled through the national tournament before losing in the final four.

The members of Rock Solid this season were Achesinski and Julie Ehrman (Butler), Jence Rhoads (Slippery Rock), Jaleesa Sams and Logan Hartman (New Castle), Jordan Zuppe and Joyce Novacek (Hopewell), Sheena Aden (Lakeview) and Kelsie Conklin (General McLane).

One of the keys to Rock Solid's success is the way the players from different school districts and different levels of play mesh together, Posey Rhoads said.

"Honestly, it's a credit to them and their parents," Rhoads said. "They don't really care who does what. With them, it's not about themselves. It's about the team. I think that's why so many college coaches like our team."

The team features players from natural rival schools.

Jence Rhoads and Julie Molloy go at each other two times a year for the Rockets and the Eagles. Achesinski and Ehrman lock horns with New Castle's Sams and Hartman.

Yet, Achesinski was found on a warm summer night at Hartman's house, having fun.

"You may think someone is really a mean player, but you get to know them as individuals and your whole opinion changes," Achesinski said. "You will still go hard at them (during the high school season), but when the game is over, you can go up to them and talk to them and still be friends. It's nice."

That kind of chemistry has made Rock Solid a very popular team at the national tournament the last two years.

It has also been popular because of its aggressive, fast style of play.

That's a bit out of necessity because Achesinski is one of the few inside threats.

"The size countered our speed," Rhoads said. "The forwards were bigger and stronger than they were last year. They were 6-2, 6-3 across the board."

That left Achesinski looking up in the post at her competition instead of down.

But Achesinski learned a lot from her experience - knowledge that she will take this winter into the WPIAL, a rough and tumble league in its own right.

"I didn't get a chance to talk to many of the other girls, but I got to watch them play," she said. "I got to see moves I've never seen before."

Rock Solid had to fight its way through the national tournament almost from the beginning.

Jence Rhoads was recovering from a broken thumb and Sams had a gimpy ankle. Then the team was put in perhaps the most difficult pool of five teams in the tournament.

Rock Solid went 3-1 in the round-robin play to win the division.

"It took us a couple of games to get back into the groove again," Rhoads said.

Rock Solid won its first game in the 64-team tournament before losing to a much bigger Texas team.

"Everyone played pretty well and the kids had a blast," Rhoads said. "I think they were a little disappointed because we would have liked to win just one more game to validate ourselves - not that finishing in the top 30 in the nation doesn't do that already."

But it wasn't the top four - something that bothered Achesinski for a short time before she realized again just what finishing in the top 30 meant.

"You have to be thankful to accomplish something like that," Achesinski said. "Being in the top 100 in the nation is great, let alone in the top 30. Last year, we were in the Final Four, but what we did this year is still amazing."

Much of the team will be together again next year. New AAU rules allow teams to compete in the 16-and-under tournament as long as all the players are still high school eligible, meaning some 17-year-olds slip onto the rosters.

Rock Solid will lose only Molloy and Ehrman next year.

"We can make another run at this thing," Rhoads said.

And who knows? Maybe some college coach, eager to rebuild a program in a hurry, will recruit the entire Rock Solid team.

Far fetched? Maybe not.

"That has come across my phone before," Rhoads said. "That would be a really quick way to reload the guns."