Since this was our first power league in Silver Division, I was pretty nervous about how we would fare. If we had bad match at the wrong time and we would be back in Bronze, so I was hoping to maintain our position in Silver.
Our pool:
1 - Roseburg 14 Gold
2 - North Pacific 14 Black
3 - Mid-Valley 14 Black
4 - Us
The first match was against North Pacific. While we didn't play poorly, we didn't play very inspired. We just kind of went through the motions, losing 25-18, 25-17. I don't know if we were looking ahead to Roseburg (they beat us badly in the PLQ) or what, but we just kind of stank it up.
As I said earlier, we had played Roseburg early in the season and played well in one game, but got smoked in the second, so I was unsure how we would play. In addition, Roseburg had been in Gold Division all season, dropping down to Silver in the last Power League. Roseburg's strength is in their middle blockers as they block very well on middle attacks, but the can't get to the outside very quickly, so we really wanted to set the outsides a lot. Much to my pleasure, we really played well winning game 1, 25-19..... with a good portion of our points coming from our outsides. I didn't mention that they had cleaned our clock in game 2 the first time we played, hoping they wouldn't remember. Unfortunately, we kind of laid an egg and lost game two 25-12. So on to the short game three. Would it be a blow-out or would it be back and forth all the way..... game 3's tend to be one or the other. It ended up a blowout... in our favor!!!! We served perfect and really took advantage of Roseburg's mistakes by keeping the pressure on with some great offense and inspired defense. This was a really great win because it gave us the opportunity to maybe get second in our pool (keeping us in Silver), so I was pretty happy.
Our last match was against Mid-Valley 14 Black. We actually played pretty well, serving perfect, but Mid-Valley was just better. We lost game one, 25-21. However, we recovered really well and beat them in game two, 25-18. So here we go again... another game 3. This one was a back and forth affair, but we pulled away at the end, winning 15-11! This was another great win in that it guaranteed 1st or 2nd in our pool!!! The match that would determine 1st or 2nd was actually between Roseburg and North Pacific. If Roseburg won, we would get first, if North Pacific won, we would get second. Fortunately for us, Roseburg took care of business and won in 2, giving us a first place finish in pool play!
After much confusion about who was first and who was second, we ended up playing..... guess who??? West Valley. I think we've played them a hundred times and have yet to win. The match had an additional amount of pressure in that the winner gets to move to Gold. Game one was a typical game between us. We went back and forth, with West Valley getting the edge, winning 25-21. Game 2 was a complete reversal in that we played harder and more aggressively, and we ended up winning 25-21. Here we go again... game 3. We played a zillion game three's, but none like this one. We served perfectly and really got into West Valleys heads, forcing them to make numerous errors. We went on to win this crucial game 3, 15-5. !!!!!!! Not only did the win move us into GOLD, we did it against West Valley!! The team was soooooo excited while I was calm and cool (not!!!).
After the huge win, we were just emotionally and physically drained and had nothing left for the final match of the day against Roseburg. We ended up losing to them to take 2nd overall, an outcome that had not even entered my mind as possible.
Firsts:
14 Silver in the Gold Division
14 Silver beating West Valley
The way I figure it, no matter what happens in our next Power League, we are going to be in the top 16 for regionals (2-day). Also, we will be seeded in Regionals HIGHER that West Valley... woo-woo!!!!!
During one of our time-outs, I emphasized that we win as a team and lose as a team. So with that in mind, I'm not going to single out any players for great play. Instead, I am going to just say that this was an awesome team win. EVERY player on the team contributed in a positive way and I cannot image playing without any of them. They really worked hard and deserve to be where they are.. did I mention that they are in GOLD!!!!!!!!!
Next up - the final Power League.
Go Webfoot!!!!!!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Rose City Tourney 2/27
This tournament is always a tough one in that there some really good teams there, and some teams that are not very skilled, with us being in the middle. One of our additional challenges this time is that we didn't have Alexa since she was sick. She made the trip and tried to play, but she just couldn't do it and went home early. This forced us into making our outsides play middle... a challenge that they all excepted excitedly.
Our morning pool consisted of:
Us
PVC Yellow
Rose City 12's
Alpine Falcons
Our first match was against the Rose City 12's. Don't let the "12's" title fool you. The Rose City 12's are usually very good. In fact, I have never beat them.
We started out really well, as we normally do, and really took it to them, winning 25-17. But, as it usually happens with us, we let them score a bunch of points early in game 2, forcing us to play from behind the whole way. We did manage to make up the difference around 20-20, so I thought that we would push through for the win.... but as it happened we missed 3 out our 4 next serves and ended up losing 25-23. This tournament was set up as 2 games only, so we didn't go to a third. Since we had a positive point differential with them I was confident that the close loss wouldn't hurt us.
Match 2 was against the Alpine Falcons, a Gold Division team that we had seen before. they are real solid and can hit pretty hard. The only way for us to beat this team was for them to have an off game, and for us to take advantage of that. Needless to say, that didn't happen and we ended going down 25-18, 25-8.
So on to match 3. If we win it, we are second and get to play in the Gold Championship... lose it and we play in the Silver Consolation. I had watched PVC Yellow play and realized that they were not very skilled. the only way we wouldn't beat them easily is if we made a huge # of errors. We didn't as we beat them handily,25-6, 25-8.
As I predicted, we took second in our pool, Yay! The only problem is that we earned the honor of playing Rose City's #1 team, 14 Black. They are currently 3rd in the region, making them a really good team. Besides the obvious skills, they also had size and power. While I was hoping that the final score was competitive (it wasn't), we did put forth a good effort. We've seen what happens when really good teams play teams that a not as skilled... the really good team makes the other team look worse than what they are (we've done that to team this season). So while we didn't score many points, I wasn't too upset about the way we played.
Since there was a second game for the losers of the first round in bracket play, we got to play again.... the only problem that it was against the Alpine Falcons again. After the tough loss to Rose City 14 Black, we didn't have a whole lot left. So while we didn't play bad in game one, we didn't play with much passion. So for game 2, I asked the team how we could beat a superior team. They made me proud by immediately saying "out-hustle them". So I challenged the team to make 3 hustle plays in the last game, which they did, diving to the floor to get to balls that had dropped in game one. The outcome wasn't much of a surprise though as Alpine beat us 15-4, 15-10.
We do owe Alpine a great big Thank You as they offered to do our reffing for us since we had the farthest to drive. That was very gracious of them, especially since I was hollering at their coach about a call in the Rose City match. Thank you Alpine!!!
It's kind of hard to identify individual accomplishments since we didn't have many opportunities for our offense (we either served the other team off the court, or we were playing Gold level teams!) With that said I do want to acknowledge everyone for having a great attitude and always striving to play there best. The outsides, Emma, Rebecca, Sara B and Delaney all stepped in to the roll of the middle blocker without hesitation and did well. Our setters Sarah J and Brit again worked their tails off getting to errant passes and even executing a dump or two. Brit has joined our 100% serving in club and Sarah J also was over 90% in. Victoria, our only real middle continues to improve with her hitting the corners instead of just hitting and through in a stuff block or two. Our Right Sides Brighton and Evan were solid. Brighton steps into the setter roll better than I had hoped for in the beginning of the season and Evan is really starting to hit the ball with authority. It's really fun to see the perfect back 9 set to him and to watch him really crank on the ball.
Of course, we couldn't set a perfect back 9 if it wasn't for our awesome Libero Anna. She continually comes out of nowhere to make passes on short tips... not only is she getting to these balls, she's usually passing them beautifully to the setter. She also really likes hitting the pipe and is getting more and more successful at it.
As a team we served 87% in, a season low for us. While Brit, Anna Sarah J and Emma all had over 90% in, the rest of the team struggled in this area. Not quite sure why this happened, but I'm confident we'll be back on track before the next tournament.
As a team we passed a 1.57. This is also pretty low, however when you play really good teams and not so good teams, it's hard to do well passing. The really good teams serve the snot out the ball while the less skilled teams don't give us an opportunity to pass since we serve them off the court. So, while the dropped balls between players is frustrating, I'm not too concerned about the score for this tournament.
Next up - Power League 3/13/11, Salem Hoop.
Go Webfoot!!!!!
Our morning pool consisted of:
Us
PVC Yellow
Rose City 12's
Alpine Falcons
Our first match was against the Rose City 12's. Don't let the "12's" title fool you. The Rose City 12's are usually very good. In fact, I have never beat them.
We started out really well, as we normally do, and really took it to them, winning 25-17. But, as it usually happens with us, we let them score a bunch of points early in game 2, forcing us to play from behind the whole way. We did manage to make up the difference around 20-20, so I thought that we would push through for the win.... but as it happened we missed 3 out our 4 next serves and ended up losing 25-23. This tournament was set up as 2 games only, so we didn't go to a third. Since we had a positive point differential with them I was confident that the close loss wouldn't hurt us.
Match 2 was against the Alpine Falcons, a Gold Division team that we had seen before. they are real solid and can hit pretty hard. The only way for us to beat this team was for them to have an off game, and for us to take advantage of that. Needless to say, that didn't happen and we ended going down 25-18, 25-8.
So on to match 3. If we win it, we are second and get to play in the Gold Championship... lose it and we play in the Silver Consolation. I had watched PVC Yellow play and realized that they were not very skilled. the only way we wouldn't beat them easily is if we made a huge # of errors. We didn't as we beat them handily,25-6, 25-8.
As I predicted, we took second in our pool, Yay! The only problem is that we earned the honor of playing Rose City's #1 team, 14 Black. They are currently 3rd in the region, making them a really good team. Besides the obvious skills, they also had size and power. While I was hoping that the final score was competitive (it wasn't), we did put forth a good effort. We've seen what happens when really good teams play teams that a not as skilled... the really good team makes the other team look worse than what they are (we've done that to team this season). So while we didn't score many points, I wasn't too upset about the way we played.
Since there was a second game for the losers of the first round in bracket play, we got to play again.... the only problem that it was against the Alpine Falcons again. After the tough loss to Rose City 14 Black, we didn't have a whole lot left. So while we didn't play bad in game one, we didn't play with much passion. So for game 2, I asked the team how we could beat a superior team. They made me proud by immediately saying "out-hustle them". So I challenged the team to make 3 hustle plays in the last game, which they did, diving to the floor to get to balls that had dropped in game one. The outcome wasn't much of a surprise though as Alpine beat us 15-4, 15-10.
We do owe Alpine a great big Thank You as they offered to do our reffing for us since we had the farthest to drive. That was very gracious of them, especially since I was hollering at their coach about a call in the Rose City match. Thank you Alpine!!!
It's kind of hard to identify individual accomplishments since we didn't have many opportunities for our offense (we either served the other team off the court, or we were playing Gold level teams!) With that said I do want to acknowledge everyone for having a great attitude and always striving to play there best. The outsides, Emma, Rebecca, Sara B and Delaney all stepped in to the roll of the middle blocker without hesitation and did well. Our setters Sarah J and Brit again worked their tails off getting to errant passes and even executing a dump or two. Brit has joined our 100% serving in club and Sarah J also was over 90% in. Victoria, our only real middle continues to improve with her hitting the corners instead of just hitting and through in a stuff block or two. Our Right Sides Brighton and Evan were solid. Brighton steps into the setter roll better than I had hoped for in the beginning of the season and Evan is really starting to hit the ball with authority. It's really fun to see the perfect back 9 set to him and to watch him really crank on the ball.
Of course, we couldn't set a perfect back 9 if it wasn't for our awesome Libero Anna. She continually comes out of nowhere to make passes on short tips... not only is she getting to these balls, she's usually passing them beautifully to the setter. She also really likes hitting the pipe and is getting more and more successful at it.
As a team we served 87% in, a season low for us. While Brit, Anna Sarah J and Emma all had over 90% in, the rest of the team struggled in this area. Not quite sure why this happened, but I'm confident we'll be back on track before the next tournament.
As a team we passed a 1.57. This is also pretty low, however when you play really good teams and not so good teams, it's hard to do well passing. The really good teams serve the snot out the ball while the less skilled teams don't give us an opportunity to pass since we serve them off the court. So, while the dropped balls between players is frustrating, I'm not too concerned about the score for this tournament.
Next up - Power League 3/13/11, Salem Hoop.
Go Webfoot!!!!!
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