Chicken Parm Dinner!

Last night was my volleyball team's first tournament. I'm sure that they all played in tournaments in their respective schools, but if it was anything like my high school carreer the tournaments are very different in terms of speed and intensity. The only down time you get is when you are not scheduled for the court. My team didn't really understand that until we got our first break; which, was five hours into the tournament.

We started out strong in the first match winning in two games. Then we reffed a match that was ugly and long. They're still getting used to doing the book and tracking the libero, so much so that if you don't keep them on task they are just gonna talk about where they get their nails done. After that match we played again, only problem was that we were missing a middle hitter. So instead of playing with a full squad we were a girl down.

We switched some things around so that a DS played all the way around and an L2 was moved to the middle as she was the next tallest, plus she's swung out of the middle before. We won that match as well, with some significant coaching beind done for Morgan, our new L2 hitter, former DS. After that match we reffed again, and much to everyone's dismay the match went to three games with every game going into extra points. It was quite honestly the worst match I have ever seen. It went so long mostly because of service errors, but the girls were very antsy, and hungry, and tired. We got the next match as a break so the girls ate, rehydrated, and asked questions. That made me very happy to see. Asking questions about technique, what to do in certain positions, how to cover certain attacks, how to move to a ball. Really good questions from 14 year olds.

The last match of the night started at 8, we won the first game 25-5 then the second game 27-25. After the first game they lost a lot of their energy and started playing down to the level of the other team. They learned what coaches mean when they say that players need to dig deep/find the desire/push through/find another gear. We came back from a 5-11 deficit to finally win the game. Winning the pool in 6 games is pretty impressive for a first tournament.

So now we have a practice tonight then a practice on thursday, then another tournament this weekend. Go Teal!