Guatemala Part 1

Hi from Guatemala! Things are going good, although we endured a couple of 5.6 earthquakes on Tuesday!
For those who don't know what I am doing, go to www.cmt-oregon.org. and poke around. FAQ is a good place to start. (See if you can pick me out on the team picture!) I am doing the ONIL stove installations in the field. I get to go out into the rural communities and help build the stoves, install water filters and other home improvements. The best part of the job is interacting with the families... the are so gracious and friendly. A couple of stories so far:

I went to a home and was trying to talk to a grandma about her grand kids and mine. I finally managed to communicate to her that I had two new twins in the family, so I showed her a photograph of them that I had. She really got excited when she found out that one the names was Lucy, since her name was Lucia. She showed the photograph to her family and when I went to take it back, she wouldn't give it to me! We asked if she wanted to keep it and she did, so now a picture of my twin grand-babies is stuck on a nail somewhere in a mud brick home in the middle of Guatemala!

The second story also has to do with a grandma, this one was 83. She was showing off her grand kids, all 7 of them. I was asking each they're name and how old they were. When we got done with that, I hi-fived them all. When I got to the end, the grandma (all 3´11" of her) put her hand up and hi-fived me too! It was pretty funny.

One of the problems here is that the indigenous population doesn't speak Spanish as their native language, so when we need to ask them a question or explain something, we have to tell it to our English to Spanish translator, who tells it to our Spanish to Keechea translator, who tells it to the home-owner. Then the process is reversed to get a response. Surprisingly, we manage to communicate.

What's so fun is to see that kids are the same all over. The girls are shy... they giggle and whisper to each other and giggle some more. The boys are bouncing around, jumping into the pictures, making faces, throwing things and generally being boys.

I'll return 3/4 with more stories and pictures. See you all at the next Power League, March 6th, Salem Hoop.

Go Webfoot!

Canby Invitational

Upon our arrival at Canby, I gave all the girls "good luck" shoelaces, hoping it would inspire us on to a good day. To get ready, we went outside to do a little warmup on the track. The idea was for them to sprint about 20 yards and then sprint back. They were so pumped to get going that when they got down to the end and then tried to stop and come back, 3 of them slipped and fell on their rear ends. Quite an auspicious start!

We recovered from that and came in to play! Our pool consisted of us, Canby White, North Count Wildcats and Club Momentum Pink. I had an opportunity to watch the competition since we had a bye the first round and quickly realized that there wasn't going to be much competition in our pool. When you play teams that are not very skilled, you really switch to a "manage the game" mode. Put our serves in, watch out for the 1st and 2nd balls, etc.

Prior to the first match, the girls were circled close together talking, so I assumed that they were talking strategy.... but being 7th and 8th graders I discovered that Sidney and Laina were showing their teammates how they could wiggle their ears, Molly was showing how she could put her whole hand in her mouth and Sidney could flick here eyes back and forth really fast! I was glad to see that they were focused!

Our first match was against Club Momentum Pink, a team that really struggled w/ serve receive. In the first game, Amanda started us out by serving 10 straight, putting us in control early. We easily cruised to a 25-8 win. In the second game, Rachel went back and quite matter of factly served 25 straight points! I've coached for quite awhile and have never seen a team get "bageled" in a 25 point game. I made a promise to the girls that if they served a perfect game (no misses) that I would take them to dinner. Little did I know that one girl would do the whole thing herself, but a promise is a promise, so plan on getting dressed up and going out in the future!

Our 2nd match was against a bit of a better team, North County Black. We didn't help much in that we made quite a few mistakes in game 2, but nevertheless, we prevailed 25-14, 25-19. The highlight of this match was two beautiful tips by Amanda to an empty zone 2.... something we had been working on in practice!

Our last match in pool play was against Canby White. Again, they didn't provide much of a challenge as we cruised to a 25-10, 25-13 win. We played much better in this match, with some great hustle plays. Laina provided a highlight as she went to attack a ball, made good contact, putting the ball cross-court, then promptly fell down. We were composed enough to recover and scored on the rally. It was quite a sight!

So we ended up 1st in our pool, with a gaudy point differential of +86... a number that is huge. The big differential won us a #1 seeding for bracket play, so we got a bye the first round.

A danger of playing teams that are not very good is that you drop down to their level of play, then when you play someone tough, you're not ready. We talked about it during the break and vowed not to let that happen.

Our first match of bracket play was against the Bearcats. they are not a big attacking team, but they proved to be a great ball control kind of team. Nothing would hit ground... they just kept passing the ball up and freeballing back over. I remember one sequence where we attacked 6 times and they free-balled back 5 of those times. While we didn't play poorly, we made enough mistakes to allow them to take game 1 from us 18-25. Game two was a bit different as we stayed the course and kept attacking... coupled with some timely service aces, setter dumps by Kayla and a great tip kill for the game win by Karson lead us to a 25-15 win. Confident that we had them figured out, we continued the good play and cruised to an easy 15-8 win.

So on to the finals against Canby Blue, a very good team seeded 6th in the region (we're 24th). We knew we had a battle because we saw them play in their semi-final match and while they all played well, they had one stud player that they went to time and time again. She had a really tough top-spin serve along with good attacking skills... she would be tough to stop. We didn't start out well, getting down pretty quick to them as #6 (their stud) really hurt us with her serving. I think at one point we were at 12-20. Then the tide turned a bit as we slowly started to gain on them, but lost game one 25-19. During the 3 minute break, we stressed the importance of not giving them free balls for them to attack and to serve tough. We reacted real well and went on to post a 25-20 win. The highlight of this game was a couple of awesome kills... one from Karson and one by Rachel. They were they type of kills that make the fans gasp when they saw them! So on to game three, where we always push to be the "first to eight". We managed that goal as we switched at 8-7. The girls really saw the opportunity and played out of their heads pushing the lead to 14-13 on a side out for us. Our server, Sky went back to serve the pressure packed serve. She hadn't served all game, but she calmly served a tough ball that they had trouble handling, but nevertheless got it back over to us. We passed a good ball, Sky set it up to Karson, who went up and pushed a tip over the blocks. The right back managed to get to the ball but she didn't get a good contact out of it and the ball dropped to the floor with out a touch. A great WIN!!!!! The girls were soooo excited as were the parents (I, of course was cool and calm.... NOT!)

So after collecting our 1st place medals, we talked about the match and they day. Words like "epic", "intense" and "awesome" were thrown around. We all agreed that this really was a team win as we all contributed to the great day.

Serving as team was down, but can be explained by all the jump serving were were attempting. We ended at 83%, a season low, but OK considering we won it all!

Although it was definitely a team win, we couldn't have done it with out the individuals. Our setters Kayla, Sky and Molly were awesome. Molly had limited playing time as she was playing in a soccer tournament at the same time (can we say "overachiever"?), but she did a great job while she was in. Kayla's dumps were timely and on the money. In addition to that, we unleashed Kayla's jump serve... she did great! Sky played great and was the one who calmly (was she calm???) went back to serve the crucial match point for the tournament win.

Our outsides, Karson, Kelli, Laina and Sidney all had a great day. Karson unleashed some fantastic kills and Sidney played a mean left back. Kelli and Laina were real solid and dependable... and Kelli managed to make a girl on the other team cry again (This is the second time!)

Middle blockers also participated in the fun. I already mentioned their great serving streaks... Amanda starting us out in the very first game serving well and continued it all day. Amanda gets special kudos for playing sick all day.... during the breaks she would go out to her car and lay down for a while to recover. Rachel continued being the awesome player that she is by serving tough, getting jump serve aces and hitting one of the hardest hit balls I've seen this season.

Courtney did her part... coming out of nowhere to pass short balls over and over again. Combine that with a good 88% serving rate and it's easy to see that she had a great day.

So I would like to take credit for the win (remember the shoelaces?) but it really was the girls. they just stepped it up and played great. I have to say that it was one of the best wins I've ever had. I can't remember ever beating a higher ranked team!

Upcoming events:
Wed - 2/10 - Scrimmage 14 Gold
Mon - 2/15 - Scrimmage 14 Green
Wed - 2/17 - Picture Day
Sun - 2/21 - Power League, Salem Hoop

Since the team served a perfect game (well, it was Rachel, but the rest of them kept giving her the opportunity) I owe the girls a nice dinner. So sometime when we have a long break between tournaments, we'll get all dressed up (dresses or skirts, no jeans, no flip-flops!) and go to a nice dinner on me. I'll let you know more when I figure it out.

Next post - after the 3/6 Power League!