Rose City Invitational

I was really looking forward to this tournament because we would have both Laina and Sky back from their Star Quest trip, but on the down side we were missing Karson who had a BB tournament.

The day really didn't start out all that well for me. I got up at 5:something in the morning and went to put my contacts in. When I went to put in the right contact in, I seemed to have lost it. I couldn't see worth a darn so I assumed it fell down the sink. No matter... I just got another one out and put it in. While driving up, I just couldn't see worth a darn, so I finally pulled off at a rest stop and took the right contact out... when I did I discovered that I actually had 2 in!!!!! SO I left one out and continued my drive. When I got to the gym, I checked in and got our pool play information... but I still couldn't see. So I took them out, cleaned them and put them back in. Nevertheless, I still couldn't see. I was really scratching my head when it dawned on me that I had them in the wrong eyes! My left and right are significantly different, so when I finally put them in the correct eyes, I could see!!!!!

So, now I think we're ready to play. Our first opponent was Rose City 12's. Although they are 12's, they are VERY good. I've played them about 5 times now and have never beat them so I was hoping for a different outcome. Well, needless to say, the Rose City 12's are very good again as they handled us pretty easily. with them winning 30-17, 30-16. This match had a few distractions that we had to work through. To start things out, Molly took a ball off her face and got a bloody nose in game 1. Then in game two, Sidney got her hands and hair all tangled up and barely was able to get through a play. We got her subbed out so she could get fixed up, when Kayla dove for a ball and banged her head against the floor. She was gesturing that she needed to come out but I couldn't figure out what she was trying to tell me, so I called a time out. Once we got her taken care of, I wondered what else could go wrong. Fortunately, nothing weird happened for the rest of the day!

Our next match was against Rose City Black, the #1 team in the region. One look at these girls and you would think you were playing 16's. Not only were they all were 4-6" taller then us, their faces all looked like they were in high school! While we played hard, we really never had a chance against these guys as we went down pretty quickly, 30-6, 30-9.

So our last chance for a win in pool play was against PVC Yellow. While they are not ranked very high (57th), I was a bit worried because we always seem to get the opposing teams best shot and we hadn't had much success in our earlier games. We jumped to about an 8 point cushion in the first game, but PVC kept chipping away at us cutting the lead down to only 4 by the end of the game. While we one, 30-26, I was pretty concerned about them gaining momentum on us. PVC continued their good play, while we played mediocre. Consequently, we were down for most of the game. Finally, we took the lead at 18-17, but went back and forth all the way to the end and ended up winning a the tight game 31-29.

So we ended third in our pool, which put is in the second division. Our first match of the afternoon was against East Count Juniors. This team really struggled with all parts of the game as we won easily 25-10, 25-11, putting us into the 2nd tier finals.

As luck would have it, we had to play Rose City 14 Gold, their #2 team that is #7 in the region. Dang! Again, we played hard, but came up short 25-7, 25-9.

One of the great things about this team is that they never stop working hard, no matter if we are up big or down big. While frustration is a natural reaction to getting beat badly, they never let it affect their hustle and hard work. Even when a particular player isn't playing well, I encourage them to find a way to help their team, which is exactly what our outsides, Laina, Kelli and Sidney did. Sidney didn't have a particularly good serving day, but played great defense, nailing perfect passes on hard attacks. Laina, on the other hand, was the opposite. She struggled w/ her passing, but served perfectly for the day, no misses! Kelli took the best of both worlds... she only missed one serve all day, played good defense and through in a good offensive day.

Our setters, Kayla, Sky and Molly all had a good day despite having the deck stacked against them. Molly had the bloody nose, Kayla bonked her head early and Sky just returned from a school trip to Florida. Any one of them could have had a bad day because of all that, but they pushed through it and play ed well. Sky even had a great outside stuff block against Rose City in the second match of the day. It was awesome.

Our middles, Amanda and Rachel both had a good day. Rachel recovered from a poor serving day at the last Power League by upping her percentage by 6 percentage points and continues to play hard and well. I tried to get Amanda to show me her mean game face, but she just busts out laughing whenever she tries... but despite that, she is getting more aggressive with her attacking.

Of course, we would be lost with Courtney. Not only is she anchoring our passing and defense, she is our most consistent server. In addition, she is gaining confidence with her "pipe", scoring more points every tournament than she had before.

So, next is a much needed rest since we just came off of 3 tournaments in 4 weeks. No practice over Spring break!

BTW - Check out the "Goofy Dress" night pics on our website!