1/22/12, We found ourselves at the Boys and Girls Club in Milwaukie Oregon.
I knew this would be a tough tournament because PVC, OJVA and Rose City always send their top teams. In fact, the tournament had PVC's top two teams, Rose City's top two teams, along with Rose City's top 12 team. Of course, there was also Webfoot's top 2 teams.
Our pool had:
OJVA Gold (Their #1 team)
Rose City Gold (Their #2 team)
PVC Green (Their #2 team)
Us
Our first opponent was against Rose City Gold, a very good Gold level team currently rated #2 in CEVA (for reference, we're 15th). Not much to say about this match, other than Rose City was a very tough serving team and we just didn't respond well to the challenge. We went down pretty easily, 25-8, 25-10.
Our next opponent, OJVA wasn't any easier, considering they are ranked #3 in CEVA. Pretty much the same story... we didn't pass well and ending up losing 25-17, 25-12. Although we got beat, there was some spark from the girls. They were starting to make some hustle plays that helped everyone pick up their own game. The one I remember was when after a time-out, Marin told me she really wanted to get a block... not two plays later she did get one, not a full blown stuff, but a tip block, but a block nonetheless. OJVA managed to keep the ball in play and made a great attack that we managed to get to, but passed it into the net. That didn't deter Zoe, who dug it out of the net, setting it up perfectly for Alyssa, who took advantage of the situation by executing a great deep corner kill.
Our last opponent in pool play was PVC Green, their #2 team. I was pretty leery of this team because they are usually pretty good that always seemed to play great against us. I think it's a bit of a rivalry thing between myself and the PVC coach. We've played many times over the years with each of us taking about the same amount of wins, so we each we're motivated to win. Unfortunately for them, their team is quite a bit weaker than they had been in the past and we stepped up and took care of them in game one, 25-18. The highlight of this game was that we served another perfect game (no, they don't get ANOTHER dinner!)
Game two was a little different in that PVC just kept hanging around, and eventually got to 24-24. We were calm and determined and finally took the last two points for the win, 26-24.
Our 1-2 finish earned us the #3 spot in our pool... the same as our sister team, Webfoot Gold had. I knew if they won their first match in the afternoon and if we won ours, we would face each other. I didn't tell the girls that, although a couple of them figured it out. First we had to beat a historically tough Rose City 12's. I say tough because I had never beat them outright (I split with them last year). They always do what we coaches call "ball control you to death". They play great defense and keep the ball in play until the opposing team makes a mistake. Fortunately, we are a pretty good team that would have nothing to do with that, and they were not very strong this year. Consequently we cruised to a 25-16, 25-13 win.
That win pitted us against 14 Webfoot Gold (of course!). We were pretty pumped up for the match and it showed because we played the best we had all day. Even though 14 Gold served really tough, we nailed our passes pretty well. We served tough and played hard the entire match, but 14 Gold was a little too tough for us. So while we ended up losing 25-17, 25-16, i was happy with our effort and, for the most part, our execution. The reason I say "for the most part" is because while we lost by about 8 points, that really means that there was a 4 point difference. If we had made 4 more plays, that's 4 points we would get and 4 less points for 14 Gold. So instead of of 25-17, it would have been 21-21... any one's game.
Nonetheless I was pretty happy with our play. While we didn't give Rose City Black or OJVA much of a match, we took care of teams ranked below us and played Webfoot 14 Gold pretty well.
As a team, we served pretty well, getting 89.4% in. (One less miss and we would have hit our 90% goal). Not only did we get 89% in, we served a tough 1.93. (A score of 2 or greater is great).
An area of improvement would be our passing. As a team, we passed a weak 1.3 for the day. (Our goal is 1.8). The teams we played had a lot to do with this, but we need to be able to step up and do a better job on serve receive.
Individually we really did some great things. First, we had 6 girls serve over 90% in. Tasha, Zoe, Nikki all were over the 90% mark and Marin, Tayler and Emily all served perfect for the day. I don't think I've ever had 6 girls over 90% and I know I've never had 3 girls serve perfect. Looks like all the serving practice is paying off. Also worth mentioning is Alyssa, who took her 63% in at the last tournament to over 82% in for this tournament.
Our Libero, Ally G, again had a solid day. She did much better at getting down and staying down and therefore got to quite a few more balls. Again, as in the last tournament, she passed more than twice as many balls as any other player, which is a good thing since she's such a good passer!
Our other outsides Emma (sometimes RS) and Holly had good games. Holly continued to nail the zone serves that I gave her and Emma really hit well. We teased Emma a bit in the match against Rose City 12 because Emma hit a ball pretty hard that hit a little 4th grader before she could even move.
Our setters, Zoe and Alli F did a great job getting to all those errant passes, running all over the court and digging balls out of the net. We are very lucky to have such good setters on this team... actually we have 3 as Marin steps in and does a wonderful job in one of our rotations.
So next up, Power League at the Courts in Beaverton, Sunday, Feb 5th. I will be in the Galapagos islands, so Kandice will have the team. I'm sure we'll play great, I can't wait to hear about all the great plays!
Go Webfoot!
Norm
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Jan 8th Power League
Our first tournament finally got here! It was the Power League Qualifier. All it does is seed the teams into upcoming power leagues. It's like no other tournament in that there is really no bracket play... you play pool play in the am, then 2 rounds of crossover matches in the afternoon. In the am pool, you take over the seed of the team that was in that position. Our pool had:
2 - PVC Red
15- Us
18 - Mid-Valley
31 - Blues Power
So if we ended up first, we would get the #2 spot, 2nd... the #15 spot, 3rd... the #18 spot, 4th... the #31 spot. Obviously, 1st would be fantastic, 2nd... great, 3rd... not so hot, 4th ... disaster.
Then after morning play, we would play teams from the other pool. We ended up playing the #3 and the #10 team. Whew... got it?
The first match was against the #31, Blues Power. This match was really dangerous because if we tanked it, we would be in a hole that would be hard to dig out of. Fortunately, we played pretty well. We only missed one serve in game one, and didn't miss any in game two (earning them a dinner at Kabuki's). We didn't play poorly, yet didn't play great either. I think our hustle on the 50/50 plays (plays that could go either way) pushed us past them. We won game 1, 25-21... a little too close for my taste, but OK since we started out 0-5. Game two was pretty tight also, until about 18-15. During a Blues time out I told the girls that the Blues would get the ball back and that we would have to get it right back. Little did I know we would score 7 straight to win 25-15! Alyssa really played well with her kills and blocks in this match... her kills and blocks inspired the rest of the team to step up their game also.
Our second match was also critical in that there wasn't much separation in seeding between us and Mid-Valley. (15 vrs 18). Fortunately for us, we played better in this match and cruised to a comfortable 2 game win, 25-17, 25-19. What paced us was some timely serving runs, where we would serve 4 or 5 in a row, giving us separation that we would need when we struggled. All in all, a good match. We were inspired by Holly trying to pass a ball off her faced (she failed), bringing a little levity to the match.
Our last match was against the #2 team, PVC Red. While we ended up losing to them, 18-25, 16-25, I was pretty pleased on how they fought the whole time. We decided to turn loose some jump serving and Zoe took the challenge well and put a clinic scoring 3 aces in a row. She also saw a huge defensive hole on the PVC side and simply free-balled the ball to that spot for an easy bump-kill. Nice job Zoe!
Our 2nd place finish secured our #15 seed, with the only thing that could happen is that we would move up. So our 1st cross-over was against Rimrock, the #3 seeded team. Again, we played well against a higher ranked team, but just couldn't seal the deal. So while losing 20-25, 21-25, I was encouraged because we played a "Gold" level team pretty close. Alli F did a couple of great things in this match... first she got to hit from the RS in one rotation and got her first kill of the season with her first swing. She also made a great hustle play, going to the floor to get an errant pass... she got the ball up and we eventually got the point. Great job Alli!
As it happened, we ended up playing our sister team in the final cross-over. After some good-natured trash talking we took them on. Unfortunately, we really laid an egg in the first game. I really don't think we were overly intimidated, we just had some bad breaks and didn't play all that well. 14 Gold really did well in taking advantage of us and cruised to a 25-9 win. I didn't dwell a whole lot on the loss as I wanted to regain some confidence in game two. Once we started playing game 2 and hung with them for the first 10 points or so, the team realized that they really could beat them if they played solid and with confidence. After siding out with each other all the way to us being ahead 24-23. 14 Gold got the next side out, but we really pushed through, scoring the next 2 points to take a 26-24 win. The win was really exciting for us.... with everyone contributing. Zoe and Holly's serves really paced us, and we all got a lift from Emily's great block.
The quick game three was much like game two, but 14 Gold just made a play here and there that we didn't respond to, so we ended up losing 10-15. Nonetheless, I really liked how tough we played against "Gold" level teams... it bodes well for us.
So we ended up right where we started... #15 in the region, Silver Division (there are 127 teams in our league). We're in the same division as 14 Gold, so we may see them again (watch out!)
As mentioned before, the team served perfectly in set #2 of match #1, earning them a dinner on me. For the day we served 85% in, with an average "serve score" of 2.0. A serve score of 2.0 or greater means we served tough... now the challenge is to get the in % up to my target of 90% as a team... and keep the serve score at 2.0 or better. A couple of the girls hit the +90% in, with Tasha at 91% and Zoe getting in an eye-popping 96%. We had 5 girls with serve scores over 2.0, Ally G, Tasha, Zoe, Marin and Holly all had +2.0 scores with Marin taking top honors scoring 2.35. Nice job girls.
Our other tracked stat is passing. It's a score that measures how well we do on serve receive. Here we have a lot of room for improvement. I have a goal of passing at least a 1.75. For the day, we passed at 1.57... as I said, a lot of room for improvement. Another telling stat is that we recorded 33 "zero" passes... these are passing attempts where the other team scored an ace. The 33 zero passes out of the 158 attempts represent a 1 out of every 5th pass will be a zero pass. Ouch... anyone want to guess as to what we'll be doing a lot of in practice???? While those numbers are not good, we did have 3 players pass above the 1.75 mark... Tayler passed an even 2.00, Holly passed a 2.13 and Alyssa passed a 2.25. Nice work girls.
Our setters, Alli and Zoe did a great job for us, distributing the ball well to all the offensive players. Usually at this age, the setters always set the middle (because it's the easiest set), but not these two... they set the 5 (outside) and the 9 (right side) well, keeping everyone engaged in the games. Alli even got a chance to attack and got a kill from the right side and Zoe contributed with a couple of excellent timely dumps.
Our full-time right side, Marin was great, especially her serving. Emma and Tayler played OH and RS and did a really good job keeping the responsibilities of each straight. Having players that play multiple positions is a mental challenge that these girls accepted and performed admirably.
Our other OH's Holly, Tasha and Nikki also did well. Even though Holly can't pass off her face very well, she showed us how to make a pressure packed serve (game 2 against 14 Gold) and played well all day. As mentioned earlier, Tasha served a great 91% in and got numerous kills. Nikki contributed by playing really solid all day. contributing in all parts of the game with respectable scores in serving, passing as well as attacking well.
Our middles, Emily and Alyssa were awesome. Numerous blocks and kills were recorded by each... I'm really excited to have 2 really good middles with tons of potential
Lastly, our Libero Ally G was great. She was the passer on 58 of the 158 balls served at us, which is more than twice as many as any other player.
So, all in all, I think we did great. I'm really excited for this team 's future as we did really well in certain areas. We do have a lot to work on, but their skill at this point is pretty good. With that said, what I really like about this team is the way they've come together as a team. They really seem to have clicked as a group and really have a good time. While there were some communication errors, that will get cleaned up as they play more.
The following picture is an example of what I'm talking about. I love it!
So next up, the Rose City Invite on Sunday, Jan 22nd. Can't wait!!!
Go Webfoot!!!!
2 - PVC Red
15- Us
18 - Mid-Valley
31 - Blues Power
So if we ended up first, we would get the #2 spot, 2nd... the #15 spot, 3rd... the #18 spot, 4th... the #31 spot. Obviously, 1st would be fantastic, 2nd... great, 3rd... not so hot, 4th ... disaster.
Then after morning play, we would play teams from the other pool. We ended up playing the #3 and the #10 team. Whew... got it?
The first match was against the #31, Blues Power. This match was really dangerous because if we tanked it, we would be in a hole that would be hard to dig out of. Fortunately, we played pretty well. We only missed one serve in game one, and didn't miss any in game two (earning them a dinner at Kabuki's). We didn't play poorly, yet didn't play great either. I think our hustle on the 50/50 plays (plays that could go either way) pushed us past them. We won game 1, 25-21... a little too close for my taste, but OK since we started out 0-5. Game two was pretty tight also, until about 18-15. During a Blues time out I told the girls that the Blues would get the ball back and that we would have to get it right back. Little did I know we would score 7 straight to win 25-15! Alyssa really played well with her kills and blocks in this match... her kills and blocks inspired the rest of the team to step up their game also.
Our second match was also critical in that there wasn't much separation in seeding between us and Mid-Valley. (15 vrs 18). Fortunately for us, we played better in this match and cruised to a comfortable 2 game win, 25-17, 25-19. What paced us was some timely serving runs, where we would serve 4 or 5 in a row, giving us separation that we would need when we struggled. All in all, a good match. We were inspired by Holly trying to pass a ball off her faced (she failed), bringing a little levity to the match.
Our last match was against the #2 team, PVC Red. While we ended up losing to them, 18-25, 16-25, I was pretty pleased on how they fought the whole time. We decided to turn loose some jump serving and Zoe took the challenge well and put a clinic scoring 3 aces in a row. She also saw a huge defensive hole on the PVC side and simply free-balled the ball to that spot for an easy bump-kill. Nice job Zoe!
Our 2nd place finish secured our #15 seed, with the only thing that could happen is that we would move up. So our 1st cross-over was against Rimrock, the #3 seeded team. Again, we played well against a higher ranked team, but just couldn't seal the deal. So while losing 20-25, 21-25, I was encouraged because we played a "Gold" level team pretty close. Alli F did a couple of great things in this match... first she got to hit from the RS in one rotation and got her first kill of the season with her first swing. She also made a great hustle play, going to the floor to get an errant pass... she got the ball up and we eventually got the point. Great job Alli!
As it happened, we ended up playing our sister team in the final cross-over. After some good-natured trash talking we took them on. Unfortunately, we really laid an egg in the first game. I really don't think we were overly intimidated, we just had some bad breaks and didn't play all that well. 14 Gold really did well in taking advantage of us and cruised to a 25-9 win. I didn't dwell a whole lot on the loss as I wanted to regain some confidence in game two. Once we started playing game 2 and hung with them for the first 10 points or so, the team realized that they really could beat them if they played solid and with confidence. After siding out with each other all the way to us being ahead 24-23. 14 Gold got the next side out, but we really pushed through, scoring the next 2 points to take a 26-24 win. The win was really exciting for us.... with everyone contributing. Zoe and Holly's serves really paced us, and we all got a lift from Emily's great block.
The quick game three was much like game two, but 14 Gold just made a play here and there that we didn't respond to, so we ended up losing 10-15. Nonetheless, I really liked how tough we played against "Gold" level teams... it bodes well for us.
So we ended up right where we started... #15 in the region, Silver Division (there are 127 teams in our league). We're in the same division as 14 Gold, so we may see them again (watch out!)
As mentioned before, the team served perfectly in set #2 of match #1, earning them a dinner on me. For the day we served 85% in, with an average "serve score" of 2.0. A serve score of 2.0 or greater means we served tough... now the challenge is to get the in % up to my target of 90% as a team... and keep the serve score at 2.0 or better. A couple of the girls hit the +90% in, with Tasha at 91% and Zoe getting in an eye-popping 96%. We had 5 girls with serve scores over 2.0, Ally G, Tasha, Zoe, Marin and Holly all had +2.0 scores with Marin taking top honors scoring 2.35. Nice job girls.
Our other tracked stat is passing. It's a score that measures how well we do on serve receive. Here we have a lot of room for improvement. I have a goal of passing at least a 1.75. For the day, we passed at 1.57... as I said, a lot of room for improvement. Another telling stat is that we recorded 33 "zero" passes... these are passing attempts where the other team scored an ace. The 33 zero passes out of the 158 attempts represent a 1 out of every 5th pass will be a zero pass. Ouch... anyone want to guess as to what we'll be doing a lot of in practice???? While those numbers are not good, we did have 3 players pass above the 1.75 mark... Tayler passed an even 2.00, Holly passed a 2.13 and Alyssa passed a 2.25. Nice work girls.
Our setters, Alli and Zoe did a great job for us, distributing the ball well to all the offensive players. Usually at this age, the setters always set the middle (because it's the easiest set), but not these two... they set the 5 (outside) and the 9 (right side) well, keeping everyone engaged in the games. Alli even got a chance to attack and got a kill from the right side and Zoe contributed with a couple of excellent timely dumps.
Our full-time right side, Marin was great, especially her serving. Emma and Tayler played OH and RS and did a really good job keeping the responsibilities of each straight. Having players that play multiple positions is a mental challenge that these girls accepted and performed admirably.
Our other OH's Holly, Tasha and Nikki also did well. Even though Holly can't pass off her face very well, she showed us how to make a pressure packed serve (game 2 against 14 Gold) and played well all day. As mentioned earlier, Tasha served a great 91% in and got numerous kills. Nikki contributed by playing really solid all day. contributing in all parts of the game with respectable scores in serving, passing as well as attacking well.
Our middles, Emily and Alyssa were awesome. Numerous blocks and kills were recorded by each... I'm really excited to have 2 really good middles with tons of potential
Lastly, our Libero Ally G was great. She was the passer on 58 of the 158 balls served at us, which is more than twice as many as any other player.
So, all in all, I think we did great. I'm really excited for this team 's future as we did really well in certain areas. We do have a lot to work on, but their skill at this point is pretty good. With that said, what I really like about this team is the way they've come together as a team. They really seem to have clicked as a group and really have a good time. While there were some communication errors, that will get cleaned up as they play more.
The following picture is an example of what I'm talking about. I love it!
So next up, the Rose City Invite on Sunday, Jan 22nd. Can't wait!!!
Go Webfoot!!!!
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