Webfoot 14 Silver

Rose City Invite

2012-01-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

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

Jan 8th Power League

2012-01-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

XMAS Break

2011-12-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

We've had a great couple of practices... can't wait to play someone! We're going thru line-ups and rotations, which is really boring for the girls, but trust me, at the first tournament they'll be lost!
The girls were a bit confused about practices over the break. I will have practices every Mon and Wed, even the ones after XMAS and New Years. I told the girls that if they are in town and not doing anything to come to practice, but DO NOT change plans because of a practice. The XMAS break is for family time and I want to respect that. There will be 6 more months of practices, so don't feel guilty about missing any.
I posted Santa hat pictures on our webpage, check them out!

That's about it for now... Go Webfoot!!!

New 14 Silver Season

2011-11-20T11:33:00.001-08:00

Hey 14 Silver! It was great meeting you all the other night. I'm looking forward to a great season with you all.
Here's a pic of what 14 Silver is all about.... a nothing hits the ground attitude. We have Katie and Michelle going to the floor for a ball (executing a perfect pancake) while Rylee and Sophia are ready to play the ball. Awesome!

Couple of things:

* - I've posted out roster and schedule on our team page. For all you photographers, either send me the pics, or send me the links to photos throughout the season and I'll get them on our page.
* - I've added all your cell numbers to my phone so I'll be sending mass texts out to you all periodically. Look for them!
* - We will be having a season get to know you party... tentatively on Sunday, Dec 4th. One of the activity will be an ornament exchange, so start looking for a cool ornament.
* - Rumor has it our awesome parent reps are organizing a warmup shirt making party, sounds fun!
* - We will be practicing over the XMAS break, for sure on 12/19 and 12/21. 12/26 and 12/28 are little more iffy. My wife is trying to convince me to go to California after XMAS... we'll see.
* - Lastly - We need 4 girls to attend the scorekeepers clinic, Saturday Dec 3rd, 9:00-12:00. I know Alli Fuller said she would be there,... I need three more. Let me know.

That's it for now, Go Webfoot!

Regionals

2011-04-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

We were looking forward to Regionals as we were only the 2nd 14 Silver team ever to make the top 16. With that said, I was concerned because everyone in the tournament would be good, and for us to get a win or two we would have to be at the top of our game and the opponent would have to struggle a bit. Our pool consisted of:

Rose City 14 Black---------- #3 in the region
Webfoot 14 Gold------------#6 in the region
Us-----------------------------#11 in the region
West Valley Jrs 14 Black---#14 in the region

While we didn't play poorly in pool play, we didn't play all that great and our opponents played as well as I thought they would. So while we were competitive, we couldn't find a win.

Our fourth place finish landed us in Gill Colosseum on day two, with Roseburg 14 Black up first. I had never played there so I was hoping that the courts would be large, allowing us to jump serve and chase down errant passes. As luck would have it, the court we were assigned was just the opposite. On the north side of the court was a bleacher that was about 2 ft from the side line... not the best situation and while there was room to jump serve, there was an overhang at the end of the courts that was a bit distracting. Despite those obstacles we actually played better than we had the day before. Unfortunately, Roseburg played better and took the match from us, putting us in the challenge bracket (lose and go home).

The loss pitted us against Pacific 14 Black, a team that had beat us a couple of Power Leagues ago. Being the incredibly consistent team we are, we played real solid... but not exceptional and lost to them in two games.

Although the finish was disappointing, there are some positives to take away from the Power Leagues/Regionals. First, we finished tied for 15th in our Region. The last time I was in the top 16, they didn't format the Regional tournament the way they do now so in that tournament, we ended up 16th... so another "first" for 14 Silver. Second - we are the #2 team (#1 in my heart!) in our club. There were only 3 clubs that put two teams in the top 16, OJVA, Rose City and us. That speaks volumes about 14 Silver.

From a coaching standpoint, we are weak in offense. While we pass-set-hit most of the time, the hits aren't screamers that hits the floor before anyone can get to it. We're going to concentrate quite a bit over the next couple of weeks to see if we can get some of the "oohhhh" kills. (Kills that make the spectators go "ooohhhh").

Individually, the girls and boy did some really nice things. Brighton continues to do a great job alternating between a Right Side and setter/backup setter. Her consistency is really appreciated by our hitters. Brighton also jumped up into the +90% in club, serving 93% in. Evan is really starting to get consistent with the jump serves and get aces out of them. Couple that with his strong hitting, he's an offensive force to deal with. While I thought he might of missed a serve over the 2 days, the book says he served 100%. Great job Evan.

Our setters are our unsung heroes of our team. They go out and chase down errant passes all day long and continue to put balls up giving our hitters an opportunity to do their stuff. If the hitters don't thank them enough, I will. THANKS SARAH AND BRIT!!!!!

Our middles, Victoria and Alexa, continue working on hitting what's called "shot boxes". Basically they are zones on the court that either are difficult to defend or if you hit them, it will disrupt the other teams' offense. Victoria is really starting to hit them and Alexa continues to wow us with hits that come out of nowhere. You think a ball is going to drop, but Alexa comes out of nowhere to not only gets to the ball, but attacks it successfully!

Our Libero, Anna continues to get praise from other coaches. Twice after matches the opposing coach would ask me "is she a 7th or 8th grader???" (They hope she's an 8th grader so they don't have to play against her next year). The attention is well deserved and feel we're so lucky to have someone like Anna anchoring our back row. Oh, she also served 93% in. :)

Emma, Rebecca, Delaney and Sara all did a great job... not only in their roll as outside hitters, but on serve receive, defense and serving. All four of these girls lead the team in passing out of serve receive, with Delaney leading again leading the way... scoring 1.74. Emma is not far behind at 1.71, followed by Rebecca at 1.62 and Sara at 1.52. Great job girls!

So next up, the Willamette Valley Classic, Mother's Day Weekend. We'll work on offense between now and then...I can't wait!

Norm

Power League 4/2

2011-04-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Gold.... So I was really concerned about how we would play, we could play scared or loose with nothing to lose, or somewhere in between. Our pool consisted of the #1, the #4, the #5 and us at #8. Not only were we in Gold, we had our sister team, 14 Gold in our pool. 1 - OJVA 2 - Webfoot 14 Gold 3 - Rose City 14 Gold 4 - Us As it would happen, we got to play 14 Gold first. I kind of had a feeling we would play them pretty well since we just scrimmaged them and did pretty well. We also had a pretty good idea of their tendencies and what their strengths and weaknesses were. Our game plan was to stay away from their excellent Libero Courtney and exploit the middle hole (area 8). We also wanted to take them out of their offense by hitting area 1 and 9... where their setter camps out. Game 1 was pretty tight for the first half of the game, but we made a few more errors than they did and 14 Gold went on to win 25-16. We didn't play that bad, but we just needed to make a few more plays. Game 2 was a bit different in that not only did we step it up, 14 Gold struggled a bit. One thing I like about this team is that when they see an opportunity to take advantage of a team that is struggling, they step up their intensity and really put the pressure on. We jumped to an early lead and never gave it up and went on to a great 25-21 win! This was a great win in that I have never took a game from 14 Gold.... so it was quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately we never got it going in game three and 14 Gold went on to a three game win. Next up we had the overall #1 in the region, OJVA. This team just did not make mistakes. We would make a great pass or block and they would just keep bringing it until they would either get a kill or we would make a mistake. We lost the match in 2, 25-14, 25-10. I was semi-pleased that we didn't give up and played hard throughout the match... they were just way too much for us. Our last match in pool play was against Rose City's #2 team. There isn't a very big difference between the #1 and #2 team for Rose City, in fact the #2 team had beat the #1 team at the last Power League. We played exceptionally well in game one, and had a chance to win it, but just couldn't quite finish the game and lost 26-24. When you lose a close game to a supposedly better team it can lead to two different things. It can motivate you to know you can play with them, or it can discourage you because you gave it all you had and still lost. Unfortunately for us, we chose the latter and didn't put up much of a fight, losing 25-12. The crossover match was against the 3rd place team from the other pool, Excel NW Black. We had never seen these guys before, so we had no idea what they were like. We found out pretty quick that they were a very solid team that again... didn't make mistakes. We were competitive, but just didn't have enough and lost the match 25-14, 25-15. Our final match of the day was a one-game affair against 14 Gold again. We were pretty excited because we knew we could take them if all the stars aligned correctly. We started out pretty well, getting up a few points on them. Unfortunately for us, 14 Gold cleaned up a lot of there errors and finally put us away, 25-20. Even though we lost to them again, I was pleased with our competitiveness. So while we played pretty hard, we couldn't get a match win. I wasn't too disappointed since we had never been up in Gold before, so we didn't know what the play would be like. Now we know and we know that we can play with these guys... which we will do at Regionals! Individually, the girls (and Evan!) each found a way to help the team. Our setters, Sarah J and Brit did a great job distributing the ball to all our hitters. They had very few doubles (something I was worried about since we had "official" officials in Gold). Sarah J had a great dump against 14 Gold that dropped without a touch and Brit contributed by serving 100% for her third consecutive tournament. Our right sides Brighton and Evan are really important to us from both an offensive and defensive standpoint. Some team put their weakest players on the right side and then never set them, but with our talent on the right side they are so important to us. They adjusted well to hit line when I asked them to and Evan got more than one stuff block... including a couple against 14 Gold that went straight down. Brighton contributed with real solid play, making very few errors. Our middles Alexa and Victoria contributed positively as well, exploiting other teams weaknesses by tipping and hitting off-speed to area 8... then mixing it up with a deep attack or two. Nice job girls. Our Libero, Anna really was a warrior. She passes over twice as many balls as the rest of the team combined is always on the floor diving for ball after ball. She showed me her war wounds after the match.. the knees, wrists, elbows and hips all were banged up with floor burns and bruises. She really is an awesome asset for us, not only because of her defensive prowess, but her offense... hitting the "pipe" is an added bonus. That leaves our outsides who are kind of our unsung heroes. The only get to play every other game, but really take advantage of their opportunities. Rebecca bounced back from an OK tournament 2 weeks ago to a very solid performance this time. Emma also played well, passing well and only missing one serve all day. Delaney was out of synch with her offense, so I had a quick chat with her... challenging her to find a way to help the team. She responded really well by be the best passer on the team as well as serving really well, especially after pool play. Sara B had another outstanding tournament, serving perfect for the 2nd time this season as well as passing well and getting some real important kills. So, while we didn't win a match, I was pleased with our effort. We did have some lapses in passion and intensity, but I expected that knowing that getting discouraged would be likely. Timely time-outs usually took care of this, so I'm not too concerned about it. This is a team of "firsts" and they didn't disappoint this time either... I have never had a team take a game from Webfoot 14 Gold. I am continually impressed with what this team has done and can't wait to see what the future holds. So now what does our finish mean to us? Unlike all previous Power Leagues, team do not automatically move up or down based on their finish. We received Gold level points which will help us get a good seeding for regionals. The way it works is that at the end of every Power League, we get assigned points based on our finish. For Regionals, they add up all the points then rank the teams from top to bottom. The two-day Regionals allow the top 16 to compete for 1st place, while 17 thru 128 play a one-day tournament that is effectively just another Power League. Getting to the 2-day Power League is huge and only one other 14 Silver has done it... getting seeded 16th one time. The point totals have not been posted yet, but I'm pretty sure we'll be ranked somewhere in the low teens... 12-14. We will just have to wait and see. Next up is a special practice on Wednesday, 4/6... it is goofy dress day. The players need to dress as silly and goofy as they can. THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL! The winner of the goofiest outfit will win a prize! We will do a little athletic stuff, but not much. Instead we will do team fun games, each with a purpose. Parents - Bring your cameras and team.... be creative!!!!! Go Webfoot!

Power League - Salem Hoop

2011-03-22T21:17:00.001-07:00

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!!!!!!

Rose City Tourney 2/27

2011-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

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!!!!!

Wilson Invitational

2011-02-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

This was an odd formatted tournament in that they used what is called snaking seeding for pool play. In this type of seeding, there is a high seed, a med high seed, a med low seed and a low seed. In our pool, we had the 3 seed, the 10 seed (us), the 15 seed and the 22 seed. After the first round of pool play, the first place team would assume the #3, the second place team assumes the #10, the third place team assumes the #15 and the fourth place team assumes the #22. After the first round of pool play, they would "re-snake" the seeding, (changing the direction of the "snake") to come up with new seeding for round 2.

Then after all that, they take the top 6 and put them in a bracket, the next 6 in a bracket, the next 6... etc.

We started out playing Nafanua, the 15 seed. We started out really well, clicking on all cylinders and Nafanua helped by making lots of mistakes. We ended up winning 25-7, which probably was a bad thing since we suddenly stopped playing in game 2 and Nafanua woke up. The problem with VBall sometimes is that momentum really takes over when you are either playing well or bad. Unfortunately, we ended up losing game 2 28-26. We had as couple of opportunities to win it, but we just couldn't finish. So we go to a third game, where anything can happen. We played about the same and let Nafanua stay in it by making mistakes at inopportune times. Needless to say, we lost 20-18. It was a real frustrating loss for us because we knew we were the better team.

So now, if we beat the 22 and lose to the #5, we take over the 15. If we pull off an upset and beat the #5, anything could happen because of tie-breakers (more on that later!) First we have to take care of the #22, Falcon VBC. This was a team where we just had to manage the game as they were not very skilled. We did just fine with this, winning 25-10, 25-11.

Next was the #5, the Alpine Falcons. I was hoping that Alpine would have an off match and that we played exceptional, but neither happened. We played OK, but Alpine really took it to us and ended up winning 25-14, 25-10.

So we took over the 15 seed. That put us in a pool with the #5, #11 and the # 24. This wasn't too bad because if we took over the #11, we would be right back in the same bracket as we would have if we hadn't lost to Nafanua, so we had incentive to do just that. In order to do this, we had to beat Team OVA. After we started, it became apparent that we could hang with these guys because we went back and forth all match. We ended up winning the match, 25-27, 25-22, 15-13... a great win! I was confident that we would beat the 24, so we would most likely get 2nd and get back to the Silver Division. They played really well, and in fact, served another perfect game in game 3(no, they don't get another dinner)!

We had to wait until Sunday to play the #5, CCJV. They were a real solid team that made few mistakes and was bit too skilled for us and we went down, 25-13, 25-19.

Our last pool play match was against the #24, Capital City Elite. I had watched them play and saw that they shouldn't be much of a problem as long as we manage the game. We didn't disappoint and went on to an easy win, 25-13, 25-13.

I was real pleased since I was confident that CCJV would take care of OVA and that we would be 2nd. Unfortunately, nobody told OVA and CCJV that they should follow form as OVA managed to beat CCJV, causing a three way tie. Someone would end up 1st, someone 2nd, and someone 3rd based on a tie breaking procedure. Since we had 4 game wins and OVA had 5 wins and CCJV 5 wins, we got third. Dang! This was really frustrating, but there really isn't anything we could do about it. So we ended pool play 15th, in Bronze Divsion.

As it happened, 14 Green was in our bracket (of course!), but we first had to get by Fire 14-1. While they were a decent team, we started playing really well, a trait that would carry us through the afternoon. We took them down pretty easily, winning in two.... 25-16, 25-20, setting up another showdown with 14 Green. I was pretty concerned since it is always hard to beat a good team three (or more) times in a row, and 14 Green is a pretty good team. If we played like we played against Nafanua, they would beat us.... if we played up to our potential, we would win. We played pretty well in game 1, getting up to 24-19 before they got a side out. After that we just couldn't get a point for the win. I even tried calling 2 time-outs in a row to freeze their server, but she would have no part off it. We let hem get to 24-24 before we finally out them away, winning 26-24. That kind of win can have 2 different effects on the losing team, it can either have an "we almost beat them, we can do this" or it demoralizes them. On the flip side, then winning team runs the risk of feeling "Whew!" or it can motivate them to play better. We quickly took control of game 2 by jumping out 10-1 and never let 14 Green into it. Consequentially, we cruised to an easy 25-12 win.

The win put us into the finals with CCJV, #2. This team really wasn't too bad, but we really started to play well. We played so well that we gave them no hope in stopping us and we went on to a 25-16, 25-5 division win! Woo-woo! We only missed on serve during the match, yes another perfect serving game. In addition we just out hustled them, even when we were up big, we didn't let up.

As a team served an eye-popping 93% in which really helped us at the right time. In addition, we upped our passing score to 1.69... not the 1.8 that we are shooting for, but up from the last tournament. We talked after day one about winning as a team and losing as a team... and this team really embraces this. They understand they all need each other and to that end, support each other. I really love that about this team!

Individually, everyone did some really great thing. We had 7 players serve over 90% in, Anna, Sarah J, Emma, Evan, Delaney, Rebecca and Alexa all were over 90%, with Delaney posting another 100% in day! Even the four that were below 90% were all above 88.9% This was an awesome serving performance.

We worked on getting our outside more involved in our offense in practice and Brit and Sarah did a great job mixing up the sets, keeping the opposing teams' defense off balance. I remember a couple sequences where we set the outside, the middle, the back 9 a pipe and a setter dump... eventually getting the point. Brit and Sarah never had a bad game and in fact, stepped up their game as the tournament went on. Sarah even dove to the floor for a beautiful pancake, keeping a rally alive that we eventually won.

Our outsides, Emma, Rebecca, Delaney and Sara all took advantage of the increased number of sets by taking care of business, getting numerous "Boom-Boom-Boom-Reload!"s. We did have to make a mid-course adjustment during the tournament... for some reason, we started to do nothing but down balls instead of getting an approach and attacking. A little talk about it quickly corrected that as they all responded well and started attacking with purpose again. Sara B and Emma both passed over 2.0 and as I said early, Delaney served 100% in. Rebecca's consistency is huge for us... she can always be counted on to make the smart play.... I love our outsides!

Our middles, Alexa and Victoria each stepped up there game for this tournament. Victoria responded well to my challenge to start hitting again by hitting deep corners time and time again. Alexa continues to amaze me pulling out plays out of nowhere. I'm on the sideline saying "no,no,no.... YES!"

Our rights, Evan and Brighton are getting more and more kills as the sets are getting better and better. Brighton like to hit line exposing the weakness in defense that the other teams run and Evan really hits un-passable balls when he gets a hold of one... which is happening more and more often.

Anna, our Libero was great again. Every tournament I have an opposing coach tell me how much the like our Libero's play and this tournament was no exception as I had 2 coaches tell me just that. We are so lucky to have her anchoring our defense as she makes great pass after great pass.

So, all things considered, I give us an A-. We had only one bad match and we really dominated Sunday afternoon when it mattered.

Next up, the Rose City Tournament on Sunday.... Can't wait!

Go Webfoot!

Power League - Albany Boys and Girls Club

2011-02-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

Our first real Power League was close, at the Boys and Girls Club in Albany. Our pool looked like:
West Valley Juniors (yes... the same team we've already played 3 times)
NW Jrs 14 Air Elite
Us
PVC Green

I was looking forward to this tournament because I thought we might have an opportunity to move up in the standings.

We started out playing West Valley Juniors. I was hoping that the early start would throw West Valley off a bit and that we would play really well.... but the opposite happened. West Valley played really well, while we didn't. We missed 5 serves in the first game, while only serving one ace. West Valley countered with good serving (again), scoring 5 aces against us. Consequently, we lost game one 14-25.

We righted the ship for the next game, cutting down on the missed serves, increased our aces, cut down on our zero passes and generally just played better. So, we cruised to a 25-18 victory, setting up yet another 3rd game against them.

Again, the poor passing hit us as we had 5 zero passes, which is just too much to overcome in a 15 point game, so another loss to them..... 9-15. Acck!!!

Match 2 was against NW Jrs Air Elite. This was a team ranked higher than us (to date, we had not beat a higher ranked team), but I thought we were playing pretty well despite the early loss. I had watched them play earlier and saw that they were beatable as long as we didn't make too many errors. The team must have read my thoughts as they played really well, so well in fact that they served a perfect game (no misses) so they've earned themselves a dinner on me (More on that later)! Needless to say, they won game one 25-21... it wasn't that close but we gave up a mini run by them at the end. They continued to play well and cruised to a 25-15 game 2, and match 2,victory. A couple of highlights in this match were the aces we scored (9) compared to the misses (2). We also passes pretty well, only recording 2 zero passes.

Match 3 was against the team we played in the end at the Power League Qualifier, PVC Green. We beat the rather easily that day, but I was a bit concerned because it was the end of the day and the match was pretty meaningless, so I was unsure as to had good they could be. While PVC Green played well, we were just better, and won the match 25-20, 25-18.

So after pool play we ended up second, which pitted us against the number 1 team from the other pool.. with the winner of that match moving up to the Silver Division. As it turned out, that ended up being our sister team, Webfoot 14 Green. I really dislike playing teams that are supposedly below us (although they were ranked higher than us) because the other team really has nothing to lose, while 14 Silver might get all freaked out about it. My concerns were warranted in that 14 Green played really well.. I mean really well. They are a solid team with some great skills, however 14 Silver stepped up to the challenge and took care of business, beating them 25-21, 25-20.
Yay! We move up to the top 16! There are 127 teams in our region so to say we
are in the top 16 says something special. Now are challenge is to stay there!

The last match of the day would be against the winner of the other crossover pool, of course it was West Valley Juniors again. The way I saw it, we could either go through the motions because we just can't to beat them or we could give it our all and see what happens. 14 Silver would have nothing to do with the roll-over attitude and played their hearts out. We out hustled them and played the hardest I've seen them play. We served awesome, no misses in game one and only 2 total for the match. Unfortunately, West Valley prevailed in three 25-22, 20-25, 9-15. Despite the loss, I was really proud of the way they fought... wait til next time!

As a team we served the best we have all season. We had two perfect games and had an "in" percentage over the 90% mark, scoring 90.6% in. GREAT job Webfoot! I told you in the beginning that I am a big fan of serving and I knew if we hover around that 90% mark, we would be successful. We had 7 players over that 90% mark and no one under 80. Nice... really nice!

On the other side (passing) we also improved. As a team we passed a 1.6... still below out target of 1.8, but better than the last tournament.

So by combining great serving, better passing and really playing hard, I give the day an A-.... with WVJ keeping us from an A+. We moved up in the standings and we beat 14 Green. A great day!

Individually we had some great play from everyone. Our right sides, Brighton and Evan did great. Evan's athleticism gives a huge boost to our offense as well as his fantastic serving (only 1 miss all day, 96.3%). Evan needs to thank the other right side, Brighton for setting wonderfully while he's back there serving. She stepped up and set beautifully all day.

Our middles, Alexa and Victoria both had a good tournament. Victoria provided a defense spark for us by getting more than few stuff blocks, while never getting called for "in the net". Our other middle, Alexa had an exceptional tournament. She got numerous kills while rarely making any mistakes, and she served a career high, 96.4% in. This was her best tournament so far and a suspect her play is something we can count on from here on out. Nice job Alexa.

Our setters, Sarah and Brit really worked hard all day. If you would look at them during time-outs or during a break in play, you would see them sweating up a storm and breathing hard. They really work hard for us. Brit served 95.4% in while Sarah was flying around getting to errant passes all over the place.

Our Libero, Anna had another good day, especially hitting the pipe. She's added power to her hit that really adds to our offense. Even when she doesn't get kills out of the attack, the opposing team can't get a good pass out of it, limiting what they can do. As usual, she was as solid as a rock passing, allowing us to get into our offense.

Our outside were great. They ALL are members of the "over 90% in" club. Emma scored 90.5%, Rebecca 90.9%, Sara B 93.3% and Delaney led the pack with a perfect 100% in. Nice job Delaney!!! Emma hit a career high with her serving and Sara B was solid as a rock for us and for the third time, posted over 90% of her serves in. Her consistency really elevates everyone else's play.

The outside were also in the top half of the team in passing with Delaney again leading the way, scoring a 2.06. We would be really hurting without this group of outsides... they are so solid in everything they do... we're lucky to have them!

Next up, The Wilson Invitational at Truax on the campus of OSU. It's a 3-day tournament crammed into 2 days. Be prepared for a long weekend! Here is a link to the tournament website:
http://www.wilsoninvitational.com/tournament-information

As I said earlier, the team won a dinner on me for their perfect serving game. We will wait until there is a lull in tournaments to do this. We will go to a nice dinner, that means dress nice. No t-shirts, jeans, flip-flops, sweat shirts. I told the girls skirts or dresses preferred.... Evan in a kilt? Naw, nice slacks and button down shirt. The girls do not have to wear heals (they can if they want) as some of them are not comfortable in them, besides I don't want any rolled ankles! We will probably go to Kabuki's on West 11th. I will get you more information when we get closer to the actual date.

Go Webfoot!

Tournament Summary Power League Qualifier

2011-01-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

We were eager to get into Power League hoping to play well enough to maintain our seed or move up a little. This is a really tough tournament in that one match can determine what division you'll end up in, so inconsistency is a killer.

Our pool consisted of the #5 team, Roseburg 14 Black, the #12 seed CCJV 14 Black, us at #21 and the #28, Pacific 14 Crew. The way this qualifier worked in pool play is that you take over the seed # of the position you finish in pool play. So if we finished 1st, we would take the #5 spot, 2nd the #12 spot, 3rd we would keep the #21 spot and if we finished 4th, we would take #28. BTW, there are 128 14's teams in our region.

Our first match was against the #5 team in the region, Roseburg 14 Black. We knew they would be very good and that we would have to be at our best in order to beat them. Fortunately, we really played well in game one, nailing passes and playing offensively well. We really passed well, only recording one zero pass. We added really good serving, only missing one serve in the game, while scoring a couple of aces. When we were able to run our offense, we were real successful. In the end, we lost game one 23-25. We were confident that we could play with them and were eager to see what we could do in game 2. For whatever reason, we played as poorly and got behind quick. That poor start shook our confidence and the whole team contributed to a rout by Roseburg. It was disappointing because we had played so well in game 1 so we knew how we could play. In game one we only had one zero pass... in game two we had eleven. Yikes! One positive to take out of the match is that we only missed one serve in the entire match, while serving up 3 aces.

Match #2 was against Clark County Juniors, a Vancouver WA team. Again, we played pretty well, not great, but not bad either. Playing solid and consistent is good, but when playing a better skilled team like CCJV, you have to play awesome, while the opposition has to play poorly. Neither one of those things happened, so we ended losing in 2, 1i9-25, 17-25.

That set up a crucial match against the #28 team, Pacific Crew. This is the one match we HAD to win. If we lose it, we drop into Diamond Division. Win it and we stay in Bronze. I didn't tell the team how important the match was, confident that they would play well... I didn't want to add any unnecessary pressure. My hopes were realized when the team performed as expected. They made a few mistakes, but on the whole played well. We ended up winning the match rather easily, 25-15, 25-15. Whew!!!

So we started the morning 21st and ended 21st. Since we had the last round in pool play off, and our next match wouldn't start for at least an hour after the end of pool play, we had a couple of hours off. This is always concerning because of the potential let down after a long break. We passed the time in the sunshine with some games of hacky-sack.... Norm is horrible.

This next match is what they call a cross-over challenge. It gives teams an opportunity to jump up (or down). If a team does something unexpected, they can be rewarded handsomely or punished harshly. Fortunately for us, the match didn't hold a whole lot of importance... it had us pitted against the #20 team. So we win it, we move up a spot... we lose it and we stay #21. By coincidence, #20 team was West Valley Juniors, the very same team we've played twice at our last tournament. In those matches, we played pretty good, but ended up losing in three. Unfortunately for us, we were a little off and WVJ played really well and we ended up losing in 2, 16-25, 7-25. Game 2 was much like the second game against Roseburg, we just couldn't catch a break. Nonetheless, we ended still 21st going into the last match.

This last match is simply a seeded within our pool match. Win it and we stay #21, lose it and we end up #24th.... not a whole lot of difference. Since we were running way late, the tournament director asked if we wanted to do a one game match, or a regular 2 out of 3. Since we had a2 hour drive and Roseburg (reffing team) had a 3 1/2 hour drive, we agreed to do the one game variety. Our opponent was PVC green, who started out #25. These early season matches are always worrisome because you just don't know how accurate the rankings are. Fortunately for us they didn't prove too tough and we handled them easily, winning 25-16.

So after a very long day, we ended where we started, 21st. Solidly in the Bronze Division. I'm pleased with our position in that I think from what I've seen of other Bronze teams, we should be able to make a run at Silver.

Our serving percentage in was a respectable 88% (our goal is 90%) with 2 players posting a perfect day, Sara B and Victoria. Nice job girls.

Our serve receive however was a poor 1.52... obviously something we will work on over the next few weeks. Anna and Delaney posted a 1.9 while Sara B posted a team high 2.0. Again, nice job girls.

Our setters, Brit and Sarah J worked hard all day. Brit added a 91% serving percentage to her day and Sarah J mixed up setting well, getting everyone involved. One of the Sarah's great plays was the very nice setter dump that ended the match and our day. Nice job setters.

Our outsides continued their good play. I already mention Sara... both for serving and passing, but the others contributed as well. Rebecca served over 90% for the second tournament in a row. As mentioned before, Delaney passing score was over a 1.9 and Emma contributed with solid play all day.

Our middles, Alexa and Victoria contributed in their own way as well. As mention above, Victoria served perfectly and Alexa had another great day day both on serving (for the second tournament in a row, over 94%) and at the net. Alexa has this knack for making reaction plays at the net when it looks like their is no chance for a play... nice job both of you.

Our right side Evan and Brighton both served over the magical 90% mark. In addition, Brighton set exceptionally well when she has the duties during our special rotations when we have Evan serve. Evan's athleticism is huge in that he gets a good swing on most set balls and is a huge contributor to our offense.

Our player of the day goes to Sara B for the best passing and serving for the day, along with some great attacks.

Our play of the day goes to Anna for diving to the floor to get to a short ball, then popping up and hitting a great down ball, all on the same play.

Our goofy play of the day goes to Rebecca for letting Emma fake her out on a served ball, resulting in a ball hitting the floor between Rebecca's feet.

Next up, Power League in a couple of weeks. Can't wait!!!

Norm

Tournament Summary - Club Ridge 1/9/11

2011-01-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

I couldn't wait for our first tournament to start... I was really anxious to see how we would do. I went into the tournament with a goal of getting used to playing with each other... used to the rotations... used to my "style". I really didn't care how we fared with win-losses, I just wanted to see where we were and for the team to get comfortable.

We started out playing a pretty weak team, Bridgetown 14 Navy. While they were weak, we didn't do ourselves any favors... we made numerous skill errors in game 1, and ended up losing it 19-25. I did my best to calm the team down between games and it seemed to work as we cruised to an easy match victory winning games 2 and 3 25-7, 15-5. Once we got the first win under our belts we settled down and started playing pretty well.

Match 2 was another easy opponent, MHAC Velocity. There wasn't much for highlights in this one.... we won easily 25-13, 25-2. The only two points they earned were from 2 of our missed serves.

I knew that match 3 in pool play (West Valley Juniors) would be tougher for us. We had seen them play since we had reffed them, so we knew they were good. We started game 1 a little shaky, we would give up a point or two, then earn one back. Before we knew it, they had stretched that to a 15-25 win. They simply outplayed us. Game two was a different story as we really executed well. Our serving and serve receive were good, as was our setting and hitting. When everything clicking, we went on to win 25-19. While I was hoping to carry that momentum into game 3, it just didn't happen as we fell 9-15.

So after pool play, we were 2nd in our pool, 4th overall. Our first opponent (victim?) in bracket play was CC Athletics, a team from Washington. Sometimes after a long break a team will be flat, but that didn't happen to us. Really played pretty well in this match, cruising to a two game win, 25-18, 25-21.

That win put us into the semi-finals with our sister team, Webfoot Green. I really dislike playing teams that supposedly ranked lower than us. You really are in a no-win situation. The "lower" team is excited to have an opportunity to knock off the "higher" team, while the "higher" team is afraid that that is exactly what they would do. Despite that, 14 Silver really played well in game 1, winning 25-15. The win was a little too easy in that we decided to spot them a 8-1 lead in game two... making my already grey hair,.. greyer. After a couple of timeouts to settle them down, we started playing better and would gain a point here and there and eventually climbed back into the game. We never lead until the very end, eventually winning 26-24. Whew!!!!

That win put us in the finals with the same team we lost to in pool play, West Valley Juniors. While we played hard and won game one 25-21, we eventually lost to them in three games. One note is that we served perfectly in game 3, no misses.... but since we didn't win it, no dinner (dang!).

So we ended up second, a really great start. While there wasn't a whole lot of competition, we beat everyone that was lessor skilled and played a better skilled team great to the end. I am really pleased with where we are this early in the season. While there are lots of things to work on, all aspects of our game are good. We have a real solid foundation.

Individually, our setters, Brit and Sara did great. We learned that Sarah is going to get to just about anything (get out of the way!). Brit got 96% of her serves in, 2nd best on the team, while Sarah had the highest passing score on the team. I'm not quite sure how our setters even get passing opportunities on serve receive, but I'll take it! Both girls distributed the ball to all three hitters, keeping the defenses guessing. We even had a couple of dumps!!!!

Our Right-sides, Evan and Brighton did exactly what I was hoping they would do. They each got a stuff block on the outside hitters (that's why we have them out there!) and also had numerous attacks and kills. My right sides on past teams have been a bit ... heigth challenged so I never had the opportunity to use them as an offensive weapon, but with these two, we'll do great. Not only did they both play the rightside well, they both served over the magical 90% mark, with Evan posting a perfect day, no missed served.

Our Middles were equally great, Alexa and Victoria. Victoria joined the stuff block party with one of her own and Alexa was a serving machine for us, hitting over 95% in. In addition, Alexa was diving on the floor over and over to keep balls in play, allowing us to get a kill and thus allowing her to serve again.

Our outsides, Emma, Rebecca, Sara B and Delaney all did well, scoring numerous kills from the outside. Rebecca and Sara both served over 90% in, and Emma and Delaney really played some nice defense.

Last but not least comes Anna. OMG! Who knew she would be so awesome in the back row. Usually passes are going all over the court, but not when Anna passed. Her accuracy is the start of all our offense. Without her skill back there, we would be really struggling. In addition, she served the snot out the ball, serving more than any other player.

You probably saw the girls keeping stats on the sideline. The two stats we keep are passing and serving. For serving, we strive to hit the 90% in mark. If it's higher, that means we are serving too easy, lower than that and we're giving away too many points. As a team, we served 89.8% in, right at the target. We scored numerous aces and made it really tough on our opponents. The other stat is passing. We only record the first pass from serve receive, but it gives in indication on how well we pass as a whole. the scoring goes like this: a 0 is for an ace by the other team, a 1 is for a bad pass, a 2 is for a OK pass and a 3 is for a nailed pass. For this tournament, we passed a 2.1 which is pretty good. Anything over 2 is OK, while a 2.5 is excellent. Our challenge will be to maintain the goods score when the competition is a little higher.

As I said in the beginning, I wasn't real concerned about winning and losing this tournament, but a 2nd place finish was awesome. The team got to know how each other plays and at times, looked really good. There wasn't anyone who "stunk it up", everyone contributed to our success.

I always give out tournament awards for "Play of the Day" and for Player of the Day". In addition, something really goofy happens, so we'll start with that one. The "Where's my Chair" award goes to Victoria for entertaining us by missing her chair when she went to si down... landing on her rear-end. It was quite a sight!

Our "Play of the Day" goes to three players for their stuff blocks. Congratulations to Evan, Brighton and Victoria!

Our "Player of the Day" goes to Anna. Her rock solid performance was awesome. Nice job Anna!

Next up - Wednesday, Jan 19th - Bring something for Rebecca as her birthday is next Tuesday.

Next Saturday, the 22nd. Power League Qualifier, The Courts in Beaverton... not very far from where we were at.

Go Webfoot!

Welcome!

2010-11-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

Hi 14 Silver! It was really great meeting all of you at the signing meeting, I can't wait for the season to start. I'll use this blog to communicate upcoming events, do tournament summaries and to post any other random thing that comes up during the season. The first thing I want to communicate is that our team webpage is up w/ our roster and tournament schedule. Check it out by going to http://www.webfootjuniors.com/ , select TEAMS, then 14 SILVER. There is a link to this blog as well as a link to our photo gallery (once we get some pics!) .

Next up - Team get together at my house, 7:15 pm, Dec 6th. Bring an WRAPPED ornament for exchanging and your favorite ice cream topping. The entire family is invited. My address is 693 Elwood Drive, Eugene. It's real close to Valley River Center. I e-mailed everyone directions, let me know if you didn't receive them.

Go Webfoot!

End of the Season

2010-06-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

The things I remember:

Season started 7 months ago with tryouts. The girls were all nervous, hoping to do well, worrying about what the coaches were thinking.

We had the tryouts, formed the team and then got to meet each other at the signing meeting. A member of each team won something at the signing meeting, who won ours? – Molly’s neighbor.

Our first practice was actually a XMAS party at my house. Do you remember the rules game and the history of volleyball? What were the very first hitters called? Bombarinos.

Do you remember practicing in Santa hats???

MLK tournament. Who was the first team we beat in our very first tournament? – Webfoot 13 Gold

Power League Qualifier, where was it? The Courts in Beaverton.
There was a girl 6”-2”. How old was she? - 12. What was her name? Ariana
Who won the award for totally ruining the waffles at breakfast in the hotel? - Laina

Canby Tournament – We went outside to warm up, so I sent them sprinting down the track about 50 feet, when they stopped to turn around, 3 of them fell on their keesters because of frost on the track.
2 things that never have happened before happened at this tournament. What were they? 25-0 against Club Momentum Pink, and we won the tournament. What was the seed of Canby at the time? 6th.

Then came Guatemala. While it is very rewarding to go down there, I really miss the girls. So this time I decided to text to them often to see how they were doing. Little did I know that I was racking up over $1,000 worth of data charges! (it got reduced to $200)

Power League #2 at Salem Hoop. I did something in the crossover match that has become a signature move for me. What was it? Called 2 time outs in a row. Who was it against? PVC Green.

Rose City tournament. Talk about having distractions and adversity. What happened to Norm on the way to the tournament? – Put two contacts in one eye, and put the left in the right and the right in the left.!

What happened to Molly? – Bloody Nose
What happened to Kayla – Bonked her head
What happened to Sidney – Got her hair all tangled up in her hair band.

Next came goofy dress night. – They really outdid themselves. I will never forget getting dropped on my head… 3 times!

Next was our last Power League in Springfield. We beat Canby, again and had an incredible comeback win against a team in game 3. We were down 10-1 and came back to win 15-13. Who was it against? Blues Power.

Regionals – Where we learned to play on “plastic”. Just missed getting into the 2-day, while Canby made it (although we beat them 3 times in the season)

Kabukis – For the perfect serving games. The girls were looking really good. While we were waiting a family came in with a young man about the girls age. You should have seen him do a double take when he saw all the pretty girls!

WVC - Hard luck tournament.. Just couldn't get any momentum. Some of the girls posed with a wooden statue of Benny Beaver. Who thought it was a bear? Kelli.

Bayview.
Who lost her shoe up on a shelf 15 feet up a wall Courtney…. and not to be outdone, who got a ball stuck too? Karson
Finally shutting up 14 Green by beating them.
Winning our very last match.
The limo ride - The girls all signing Katy Perry’s California Girls. Waving at the “large” African-American gansta guys at the side of the road. Having boys at the overlook taking their pictures.
Who thought that Alcatraz was named Azkaban. (Harry Potter). Laina
All the food at the Rainforest!!

So we started the season with a win, and ended with a win, with a tournament championship in between… mixed in was 6 perfect serving games, including the 25-0 win, and a win over 14 Green. I’ll forget about all the other stuff.

I’ll always remember the endless games of cross court wars… them always yelling “3 meter line” when I said 10 foot line, all the blizzards I bought, running sixes for missed serves (Who always yelled encouragement? Kayla. Who always served last ? Sidney. I remember making the girls yell Webfoot at Kabukis (they really didn’t want to) and then again at the Rainforest… where they didn’t bat an eye! I’ll remember all the languages we learned. What's the number ladies? 3

But what I will remember most about this team is their work ethic, their camaraderie and great personalities. I have been truly blessed and honored to be able to be their coach this season. I truly believe I have 10 new best friends and hope they feel the same way.

Awards -
Brick Wall Award - Amanda
Match Winning Shot Award - Karson
Flaming Volleyball Award - Kelli
Ultimate Teammate Award - Laina
Height Doesn't Matter Award - Molly
Go Ahead And Hit As Hard As You Can Award - Sidney
Most Inspirational - Rachel
Most Improved - Kayla
Best Defense - Courtney
Best Offense - Rachel
MVP - Sky

I hope you all have a great summer, see you all next year!!!

Bayview and the "End of the Season"

2010-06-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

For those of you looking for my season ending post, I am going to wait until after our season ending party. I don't want to give anything away!!!

Suffice to say that we had a great time, played hard and ... beat 14 Green! Woo-woo!

Willamette Valley Classic

2010-05-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Well, if you hadn't heard, we didn't have the best tournament. We went in 18th and ended 41st..... not a very good showing. Our serving hit an all time low and we had, what seemed like hundreds, .. zero passes (aces against us and un-settable balls).

We had our good moments, but they were far and few between. However, through it all, I never saw the girls give up. They always worked hard and strived to win. I never saw them getting nasty to each other. They truly have learned that we win as a team and we lose as a team.

So, as a firm believer in learning from our mistakes and moving on, so we won't dwell on the tournament and get ready for Bayview.

Kabuki's!

2010-04-22T21:49:00.001-07:00

Since the girls have served numerious perfect games, I owed them a nice dinner out. So they got all gussied up (who knew they cleaned up so nicely?) and we had a great time at Kabuki's on Wednesday. Check out the pics on our Webfoot page
http://www.webfootjuniors.com/Photos/Photo%20Galleries/14Silver/Kabukis/index.htm

Regionals

2010-04-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

This tournament is structured a little different than any other we've been in. It's setup so that 2 divisions actually cross play each other. So if your in the higher division, you have a chance of playing down and if your in the lower division, you have a chance of moving up.

In out pool, there was us, Blues Power, Vancouver Lightning and West Valley Juniors. Our first match, against Vancouver Lightning, was a tough one for us. Although I felt we are a better team, Vancouver put a great game together, while we played pretty poorly. Our serving was OK, missing 4 over the whole match... not good, not bad. However our serve receive really struggled and consequently, they beat us in 25-16, 25-22. About the only highlight of the match was a great one arm pass that came from Rachel. There was a great tip by Vancouver Lightning that almost hit the floor, but our girls kind of all dove for it, managing to get it up a little. Our second contact was another "barely got it up" pass. So, although Rachel was on the ground from the first scramble, she saw the ball falling to the ground and put an arm on it, muscling it over for a great bump-kill.

The loss put us in a precarious position, having to beat Blues and West Valley in order to stay in Bronze Division. West Valley was a really young team and we handled them pretty easily, 25-9, 25-18. We pretty much served them off the court in game one and continued it into game two, although we allowed them to score 5 straight before we closed them out.

So on to the Blues, a team that beat us in our last power league, but one we had beat before. Sometimes I tell the girls about important matches and sometimes I don't. This time I opted to let them know that if they won, we stay in Bronze, if we lose we go to Diamond. The strategy seemed to backfire in that we went out and missed 6 serves in the first game! That poor performance made the game very tough and we on to lose 25-18. Between games, I got on them a bit about the serving. I told them, play hard, get your serves in and be smart... do that and I would be happy. While they did make me happy by doing all that, we ended up losing 25-23. So on to Diamond Division.

Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed, but understood that it was our own doing. So after the break, we went to bracket play. The way bracket play worked was the first game either sent you into the winners bracket or the consolation bracket. Taking one match at a time, we obviously vowed to go to the winners side. Our opponent was North Pacific Smack. They were a decent team, but in the end we were a better team winning 25-21, 25-15. With the win, we secured 25th thru 28th.

Our next opponent was PVC Green, a team we barely beat a couple of power leagues ago (remember the 2 time-out/sub situation? That was them). Like last time, the games were very tight. We took the first 26-24 and they took the second, 25-19. I was pretty confident going into game three as we had played pretty well in the past third games. Unfortunately, we put ourselves in a quick hole, unable to serve receive. While we played hard and missed zero serves, we ended up on the short end, 15-9. If it's any consolation PVC Green went on to win the division.

So, while we were disappointed with our play, I felt we played pretty well (except against Vancouver Lightning). We ended up 28th in our region (out of 117), not where we had hoped to be, but not bad.

Since I always talk about our Libero last, I'll change it up and talk about her first. Courtney is so awesome, coming out of nowhere to pass short balls perfectly to our setters. In addition she has never served below 90% (the only one one on the team to do this) and is getting more and more kills from the "pipe".

Our setters hustled their rear ends all over getting to errant passes. Sky hit a personal all time high in serving, getting 95% in (a team high). Kayla upped her serve percentage over her last game and got her first outside block. Molly even joined the blocking party by getting a touch!

Our outsides (Kelli, Sidney, Laina and Karson) had a very consistent day attacking, getting more confident with their swing. There was a point in the game against West Valley that the opposing coach took her right back and put her in the middle of the court to counteract the dump (leaving zone 1 wide open). I pointed this out to the outsides and they promptly made them pay by hitting more down the line. Serving wise, Laina was just under the 90% mark while Karson was just over. Kelli made some great scramble plays and Sidney always an awesome defensive player.

Our middles, Amanda and Rachel played well, especially in blocking andserving. I think Rachel got a block in every match (game?). Both of them served in for all-time highs over 90% helping the team to hit a team high 88.7%.

So again, dispite our finish, these girls are the best. They are very coachable and truely like each other. I wouldn't trade them withe anyone.

Next up Dinner at Kabukis!

Last Power League

2010-04-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

For our last Power League we finally got to stay close to home by playing at the Regional Sports Center in Springfield! Yay!

While the format was the same as all our other Power Leagues, the end result had very little to do with our seeding in Regionals. The reason is that Regionals' seeding is determined by points, not your finish during this tournament. In all Power League tournaments, teams accumulate points based on their finish. For example, we received 495, 495 and 490 points for a total of 1,480 points. The team directly beneath us, Blues Power, had 485, 480 and 505 for a total of 1,470 points. So, although Blues Power finished ahead of us in this tournament (4th vs 7th), we finished higher for Regionals because we had a higher point total. This is also why Canby finished 15th overall (we finished 20th). Although they had finished 8th in EVERY Power League, they had enough point to get into the top 16... because they started out 6th. They had 565, 525 and 485 for a total of 1,575 points. In the end, our finish in this Power League had no bearing at all in where we would be for Regionals. If we had won the tournament, we would have ended up with 1,510 points... which would have made no difference in our seeded! We still would have been 20th! Hopefully this all makes sense to you!

Our pool consisted of:

Canby Blue
Salem Black
Webfoot Silver (us)
Blues Power

Our first match was against Canby Blue... the team we beat at their tournament for the championship. We knew they wanted revenge, but we also wanted to deny them the pleasure. Game one was kind of ho-hum... nothing particularly good or bad happened, although we dd make quite a few skill mistakes. On top of that, luck was on their side as every random play fell their way. On the flip side, Courtney had a great run of serving, getting 7 opportunities and scoring aces on two of the attempts. Despite that, we lost game 1 25-20. Game two was complete turn around for us as we played much better. Kelli paced us with some great serving, scoring 4 aces which really put them on their heals. I think the tough serving really got into their heads. We took advantage and cruised to a 25-19 win. This set up the critical game 3 (Take note... this will be a theme for us all day!). We started out real strong, again relying on Courtney's great serving. We made the switch at 8-1 and cruised to an easy 15-7 win.

Match two pitted us against Salem Black. This was a very good team that we hadn't seen before. They did a couple of things that we had to adjust to... first, they tipped effectively over the blocks and 2nd, they triple blocked middle attacks. While we have practiced a rotation defense (good for teams that tip), we didn't execute very well and ended up losing 25-23. After stressing the need to play the defense, we did much better in game 2. We also took advantage of the triple blocks in game 2 by hitting right into it. This may seem to be a little counter intuitive, but they weren't quite athletic enough to execute the triple block, so everything we hit against it ended up dropping because they would get a deflection, but never a full block. These two changes, along with our 3rd (4th?) perfect serving game of the season, led us to a 25-18 win. Serving particularly well were Courtney (again!), Laina (2 aces) and Kayla (1 ace) So, on to the 3rd game again. Unfortunately, we started off poorly with our serve receive and never recovered, eventually losing 15-5.

So, now we were 1-1, need a win to get into 1st or 2nd (I thought). Our opponent this time was Blues Power. They were another team that we hadn't seen, but looked pretty comparable to us. Game one was a real tight one, and although we missed 5 serves in game one, we managed to squeak out a 25-23 win. For whatever reason, we didn't show up for game two and lost badly 25-15. So... game 3 again!!!! This game started out the same as the last game 3.... we just couldn't get a side out. Poor passing, mental mistakes and skill mistakes all caught us at the wrong time as we soon found ourselves down 10-1. Then, things changed. All the talking about never giving up started to sink in and we started to score some points. This rattled Blues a bit and they started to make the mistakes. In the end, we outscored them 14-3, taking the game 15-13! An unbelievable comeback!

So we ended up 2-1, usually good for 2nd place. However, everyone was beating everyone else (except Canby), so we ended up in a three-way tie for first. The way they handle ties is they have 2 play-off games to determine seeding. The highest ranked team, gets a bye the first game (assuring 1st or 2nd) while the other teams have to play in in order to get to 1st or 2nd. This arrangement is very frustrating because although you are tied for first, you could end up 8th. So, we were the 3 seed coming in, so we had to play the Blues again. The outcome was different this time as the Blues played very well, and although we didn't play poorly, they just beat us.

So we ended third (grrrr!!!!) after being tied for first. Our next match was against Roseburg Orange. This was a team we lost to at our last Power League, but the girls didn't let that phase them as they took game one 25-22. The we hit the wall...... While played hard, I think all the games we played earlier finally caught up to us and we ended up losing the match 25-22, 15-9.

The last match was again the relatively meaningless game that we never seem to win. The difference this time is that is was against Canby, a team we love to beat. The girls really stepped up and played well... really putting the pressure on them with some great serving. We scored 6 aces (Sky - 2, Sidney - 3, Amanda - 1) and only missed 3, a good ratio. Consequently, we went on to a 25-19 win (it really wasn't even that close).

So, as I said early, our finish really had no bearing on our seeding for Regionals... so while i was disappointed with finishing 7th, I actually was pretty happy with the way we played. We beat everyone we played at least once, which means that we're having longer "good" streaks and shorter "bad" streaks. Our serving was the best of the season, coming in at 89%, just under the magic 90% mark.

While they all had their ...less than stellar moments, the girls really did some outstanding things. Our setters worked real hard all day, chasing down errant passes, getting them up for the hitters. Kayla (I love to dump!) toned the dumping down a bit, which actually made it more effective. Since the teams were not ready for them, they were more successful. One that come to mind was for the game 1 win (25-23) against Blues. Kayla also served 8 aces over the course of the day with her jump floats. Not to be outdone, Molly and Sky both upped their serve percentages from the previous tournament... now if I could only get them to dump!
Our middles were key in our victories. Rachel continues to hit hard and makes athletic plays while Amanada is starting to hit harder and more aggressively. This duo is hard to stop when the get an opportunity to attack. Rachel also went on to post her best serving day of the season, getting 93% in.

Our Libero, Courtney is getting better at determining "in" or "out" and really served the snot out of the ball. She served 35 times and only missed one serve all day. What was particularly outstanding is the she served in streaks. It seems that every time she went to serve, she served at least 4 or 5 in a row. Outstanding!

I left our outside until last because they were really awesome as a group. They all played great, both defensively and offensively. Like Courtney, Laina and Kelli both had great serving streaks that really put the opposing teams on their heals, while Karson had a great solid day... she served well, played defense well and took care of business when she got the opportunity to attack. I feel real confident with putting any one of these girls in any situation. Then there's Sidney. At our last tournament, Sidney really struggled with her serving, getting only 38% of her serves in. I knew Sidney could do much better, but was I was concerned that her confidence might be low. In serving, confidence is one of the most important traits to have... so needless to say, I was concerned. Well, no one told Sidney that she should be unsure of herself as she went out and had a PERFECT serving day! I was so proud of her determination and performance. Great job Sidney!

I talked briefly with the team after our last match (very briefly since we were in the gym from 7:15am to 7:15 pm!) and talked about their never give up attitude and how well they all play together. I am so impressed with the team as they continue to do things no other team has ever done (coming back from 10-1, serving 25 straight points, winning the Canby Invitational, etc). I can only hope that all of you are as proud of them and their efforts as I am. This a special team (no... not special needs) that makes me want to coach forever.

So now on Regionals. We are 20th (out of 117) , which puts us in the middle of the Bronze Division. If we get 1st in our Division, we'll be 17th, if we finish last, 24th. While the season isn't over yet, this is outstanding for this team. When we started the season, I privately hoped that we rank somewhere in the 30's... so ending up 20th is awesome.

I don't have the schedule yet, but I think we'll be a 2 seed in our pool, which means we ref first... probably an 8 o'clock start. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Upcoming:
Sidney's Birthday on Wed, April 14th!
Dinner on me for the girls on Wednesday, April 21st! 6:00 pm to 7:30ish. Where - It's a secret for now. Dress nice !!!!!

Rose City Invitational

2010-03-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

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!

Power Leagues 1 & 2

2010-03-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

Despite not being there of our first Power League, I did get feedback on how we played, along w/ serving stats. While we didn't play well, we did manage to win the cross-over to stay in Bronze Division. The only highlights I have is that Courtney served %100 in, with Sky and Kayla joining the good serving party by getting over 90% in.

Power League #2
We were out the services of Laina and Sky as they were on a school trip to Florida. We would miss them dearly! On top of that, Kayla was feeling under the weather, but sucked it up and played all day.
Back at the Salem Hoop, we had Columbia Juniors Black, NW Jrs Air Elite and the Sharks in our pool. The Sharks had moved up from Diamond; while Columbia Juniors Black had moved down from Silver.
Match #1, against Columbia Juniors was the best of the day. We played pretty good in game one winning 25-20, although we missed 5 serves. Columbia Juniors played much better in Game 2, but we responded by playing great. We served a perfect game (no, the girls DON'T get another dinner out!) and went on to a 25-18 win. One of the highlights of this match was a play were Columbia attacked a ball pretty hard, but we git it up. It was such a bang-bang play play, Rachel didn't see where the ball was. She picked it up at the last second and one-armed passed it over... and eventually we got the point.
After match #1, I gave the girls some Guatemalan goodies (remember the lucky shoelaces?) thinking the hair scrunchies would inspire them to more victories!
Match #2 was against NW Air Elite. For some reason (if I knew why, I would be coaching the Olympic team!) the team fell out of there normal smoothness into a more hectic, frenetic style. They just didn't play smoothly and we ended up losing 25-19, 25-19. All through the match I tried to get them out of their funk telling them that we couldn't do anything about the past, only the future and to shake it off and start playing as well as I knew they could.... but to no avail.
Match #3 was against the Sharks, a team that won the Diamond Division. It was evident that this team started out in Power League way too low as they were pretty good. The ran a rather unorthodox defense (called center up) where they run their back row setter to the middle of the court and drop the outside off on center attacks. The weakness of the defense is that it gives up deep corners. Unfortunately, we aren't good enough (yet) to hit the deep corners mainly because we don't pass well enough to get consistent attacks. We probably played the worst of the day and ended up losing 25-19, 25-12.
So we ended pool play 3rd. We had to wait quite a long time to play the important crossover match because of a tie in the other pool. By the time we played PVC Green, we were already over an hour over schedule. So after being off for about 2 1/2 hours, we took the court to play. PVC Green had played in the tie-breaker and lost badly, so I was hoping they were a bit demoralized and/or tired. Game one was real solid for us as we cruised to a 25-17 win. Since we had played pretty well, I wasn't real worried about game 2, but PVC Green wasn't ready to give up. So while we served well, only missing 2) PVC Green won 25-20. So on to the important game three. We vowed to be the first to 8 and helped ourselves by jumping to a quick 6-1 lead. This is when PVC woke up and made it tough for us. While we were the first to eight, it was 8-6 when we switched sides. We served well and got up on them to about 12-10. We fought back and forth, eventually getting to 14-12. We served the pressure packed serve in, but after a long rally PVC got the point. So to settle the team down and to try to break any momentum PVC might have gained in getting the side-out, I called a time-out. After the time-out, PVC subbed... I'm not sure what position we went into, but it really didn't matter as I had forced the coach into making a change. Before PVC served, I called another time-out to ice their server. I told the girls that it doesn't always work, so be ready for a good serve. Coming out of the time-out, the PVC coach called for another sub. I didn't think this was legal since no play had occurred and questioned it w/ the up official. She surprised me by coming off the ref stand and left the court to find the head official. When she came back, she said it was legal, so play would resume. To my surprise, their server missed the ball badly and the ball hit the net harmlessly. So we win 15-13,... and stay in Bronze!
The last match of the day was the relatively meaningless match against Roseburg Orange, a team that had dropped down from Silver. They were a pretty good team and cruised to a 25-16 win.

Highlights for that day:
Karson and Sydney did a pretty good job hitting, but since we didn't pass all that well, so they didn't get a lot of opportunities. Since Kayla wasn't feeling well, I had a backup plan to get her rest whenever I could by subbing her out when she was in the front row. Kelli got the dubious honor of learning a new position (the right-side) in about 5 minutes. We ran the rotation twice and Kelli performed awesome, never out of position and even getting a kill from the right-side. Karson served over 95% in, second highest for the team. Sydney struggled a bit with her serving, but made up for it with defensive determination in the back row.
As I said earlier, Kayla was ill, but played great. I remember early on she dumped a ball, but the ref called a double contact. While the ball has spin, I didn't think it was a "two"... instead I think she surprised the ref. I made it clear what I thought of the call and moved on. Later on, in the next game, Kayla did it again, this time turning her body before she dumped. Of course, there was no call since it was clean and I won't forget the look on Kayla's face... while she didn't glare at the official, she had a "that will teach you to call a double on me" look on her face. It was priceless. (More on Kayla's faces later!) Our other setter Molly, played every point during the day... being the warrior of the team. She served well, getting 89% in and played great all day. Her mastery of the short serve is a great asset to us. Now if we could get her to dump every now and then (lol!).
The middles were real solid in their front row play as Rachel attacked hard and Amanda came up with a few blocks, on of them a stuff block. Amanda served great getting 95% of her serves in. In addition to that, Amanda is probably our best deep zone server as she consistently hit the zone I give her.
Lastly (why is she always last???) Courtney played great. She's getting more confident in her "pipe" attack, only mis-hitting one all day. She is getting smarter on when to attack and when to free ball. In addition to that, she served perfectly... that's two tournaments in a row!!!! Nice job Court!!!
I mentioned Kayla's faces earlier and would like to elaborate. No one can ever say that Kayla hides her emotions as it's very clear how she feels. In the last match against Roseburg, I decided to run a 5-1 just to get the girls used to it. The reason we might go to a 5-1 is that someday we might be down to one setter. The big difference in this setup is the serve receive when the setter is in the front row. Once it was clear that it would be tough for us to win the game, I subbed Kayla out, forcing the girls into a 5-1. The look I got from Kayla was one that made my blood run cold! It was an icy stare that I wouldn't want to see again! I love the passion that Kayla has, but yikes... don't mess with this girl!!!

On to the Rose City Tourney this Sunday. Remember to turn your clock ahead Sat night and plan on arriving NLT 8:15 at the Boys and Girls Club of Sellwood. We'll have Laina and Sky back (yeah!), but Karson has a basketball tournament (boo!)

Go Webfoot!

Guatemala Part II

2010-03-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it back all in one piece although it seems that I have brought back something "special". Nothing too serious, just a little GI issue along w/ fatigue.. I tried to be careful about what I ate, but nonetheless picked up something.

I'll put together a CD with photos for everyone so you can see what it is we do down there.

Guatemala Part 1

2010-02-24T17:49:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

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!

Power League Qualifier

2010-01-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

We found ourselves at lovely courts in Beaverton for our Power League Qualifier. Our pool had the #1, #16 and the 32 ranked team, we were #17.

The way the qualifier works is that you take over the seed number of the position you finish in in pool play. So if we were first in our pool, we would take over #1, 2nd = #16, 3rd=#17 and 4th=#32. I really wanted to manage the day and come out at least where we went in, which was in the 3rd division (#17-#24).

Our very first match was against the #1 team, PVC Red. While they were warming up, we got our first look at Ariana, there 6'2" 12 year-old middle blocker... 12 years old!!! Anyway, while I had hoped that we would play well, I didn't entertain any thoughts of being very competitive. Boy was I wrong. We came out and played really awesome, making vwery few errors, while PVC Red made tons. We took advantage of those errors to push them to a 24-23 deficit. PVC Red had the side-out and went on to win the first game 26-24. PVC Red cleaned up their act a little bit in game to, as they went on to win 25-16. We had a couple of great highlights in this game, .. Rachel had three jump serves in in game 2 (2 for aces) and Kayla executed a perfect dump that got PVC completely off-guard. Nice job girls!

Match 2 was against a team we had seen before, Clark County. They had beaten us pretty easily 2 times before, but I was optimistic that we would be more competitive this time around. Alas, it wasn't meant to be as they really put a beating on us, 25-5, 25-13. There are some teams that just give us trouble and I guess this is one of them. Clarck County played really well and we didn't. Nuff said.

So going into match #3, we were where I though we might be, 0-2. However, we needed to beat Yakima in order to hold our #17 position. Game 1 was a back and forth affair, with neither team really playing all that well. We did OK, but in the end, we lost game #1, 25-20.

Game two was a different story as we cleaned up some of our mistakes while Yakima made a few more... so we cruised to a 25-22 win, setting up the important game #3. This was the first match where we went 3 games this year, so I was curious as to how we would respond to the pressure. It was a really close game to the end, but with some timely time-outs and strategic substitutions, we prevailed, 15-13. I really nice win! All there girls played well under pressure, with our setters executing some pretty dumps and our hittersmaking some nice kills... of course all set up by Libero making gereat passes over and over.

So we ended pool play in the same place we started, 17th. Next up was another important match, the cross-over. What this match does is it allows teams from the other pools to play each other, supposedly to even up the pools if there are inbalances. For some reason, this is the match that my teams have always tanked... pushing us out of our current division, so I was pretty nervous. and I really didn't know much about the team, Cowlitz Blue the #29 team.
Needless to say, my fears were unfounded as we easily won in 2, 25-13, 25-14. So we get to stay in Bronze! Woo-woo!

The last match of the day is kind of a meaningless match in that it really doesn't change your division, it just seeds you within that division and since you play everyone in your pool, it really doesn't matter what seed you are. So we went in with the mentality to try stuff that we wern't real comfortable with, more jump serves, dumps, back row attacks, etc. While I wanted us to play hard and win, it just wasn't there as we lost pretty quickly to them (Rose City 14 Gold).

So my hopes came true, we stayed in Bronze for our next Power League. .. (and I'm pretty sure Clark County isn't!)

Individually the girls all had there great moments. Our setters practiced and saw how and when to dump, with Kayla taking the lead in trying them. Sky executed a few and Molly got one to area 4.. so look for more offense out our setters!

Our hitters did well, with a much better job of keeping the balls in, with Karson really hitting well. Laina and Kelli both followed Karson lead in attacking"in" while Sydney did another outstanding job playing defense.

Our middles, Rachel and Amanda were there solid selves, making good decisions as to when to really crank on the ball and when to keep it in play.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if it wasn't for our outstanding Libero, Courtney. Not only did she pass really well, she starting to get the confidence to hit the "pipe".

As far as serving goes, we improved as a team, going from 84.8% in to 87.3% in. No one dropped below the 75% in mark while 3 players broke into the > 90% in mark. Sidney led the way with perfect serving for the day 100% (I didn't count the last game against Rose City because we were all jumping) and two others, Courtney and Molly both were over 90% in... for the second week in a row. That consistency is awesome! What's so exciting about Sidney's performance is that she was the low girl at MLK, with a 62% in mark. Amanda joined the improvement party, going from 69% in to 87% in... great focus and commitment to getting better! Good job Sidney and Amanda! Kayla, Rachel and Amanda all were over 85% in so they are right there.

So next up is the Canby Tournament, Feb 7th. Can't wait!

Norm

MLK Tournament Summary

2010-01-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

This is the inaugural year of the MLK Classic here in Eugene. I was unsure as to what the format would be and what the competition would be like, but I kept an open mind and went with the flow.

What I liked about the tournament is that it would be a good first tournament in that we would get a lot of playing time and that would translate to us being comfortable w/ our lineups, defenses and each other before our upcoming power league. I also was looking forward to see how the team chemistry thing worked. Although I felt I had a pretty good read on the girls, you never know until you put them in a competitive situation.

Before I go into each game, I want to say that the team far exceeded my expectations as far a team chemistry goes. Usually I have to prod them a bit to do things together and to stay together as a team. This team needed no prodding. During down times they all hung together, either just sitting and watching or by playing a little ball together. When they were playing, they supported each other without finger-pointing or eye-rolls whenever there was a error made. There also were no "clics" which is really refreshing. With them being such great teammates, we can focus more on the skill part of the game.

OK, we started the season out with a match against our sister team, 13 Gold. I always am nervous about playing a team that is supposedly "lower" than us because the team that is "higher" freaks outs out and plays really poorly, while the "lower" team has nothing to lose and plays loose and aggressive. Fortunately for us, we played as we should, taking care of business and dispatching them 25-16, 25-18. 13 Gold has some pretty good servers and we struggled a bit with that, but we countered w/ 16 aces of our own. The only real mental mistake we made was a rotation error where one of our middles forgot to go in when we switched w/ the Libero... kind of an easy call since we only had 5 players on the court! There was no harm done and I'm sure that that will not happen again. A great start to our 2010 season though... undefeated!!!

Our second match of the day was against Clark County 14 Black. This team is right above us in Power League, ranked in the Silver Division. They were a pretty solid team with a very good setter. The girl was very athletic and she really took control of her team making critical plays when she needed. In addition to that, she ate us up with her serving. (We'll have to figure this team out... they are in our pool at our next Power League). Anyway, Clark Count beat us in two, 19-25, 11-25. While we didn't play poorly, we didn't have much spark either.

Our last match of the day was against WVBA Mizuno. This team consisted of girls that looked 16. They were tall and athletic and played really well. They triple-blocked successfully and pretty much dominated in all parts of the game. We lost the first game, 16-25, which in retrospect, was pretty good since they really took it to us in the second game, 9-25.

So we finished they day 1-2. We beat a team that was not as skilled as us and lost to a couple of teams that were very skilled. Looking ahead, - Both of these teams ended up in the finals, with WVBA wining the whole tournament and Clark County took 2nd.

Sunday - Pool Play:
The first match of day two had us pitted against a 13's team, WVBA Mizuno 13's. Yes, they are the sister team to the team that whooped us on Saturday, so I was a bit concerned that the whole club may be filled with skilled athletes. My fears were unfounded, not because the team wasn't good, but we played really well. We won game one 25-18 playing pretty solid, but then really took it to them in game two, serving them off the court with nine aces... the ending score was 25-14.

The next match of the day was against Motion Kaepa- Bantam 14's. This time we didn't play so well in the beginning, with us being down 6-0 before I called a time-out to settle the team down. They responded really well and went on to get it tied at 9, in route to a 25-19 win. With the confidence from knowing we came back to beat them, we went on to give them a thumping in game two, winning 25-13. The highlight of this game is that we only missed one serve (Remember, a perfect serving game earns the girls' a dinner out!)

So 2-0 so far, with our last match against East County Juniors. This team was not very skilled and I knew all we had to do was manage the game and we would be fine. This is exactly what we did as we cruised to a 25-9, 25-6 victory.

3-0 for the day, very cool!

Monday - Bracket play:

We ended pool play 4-2, which by my figuring put us 5th overall. Being fifth in in a 10 team pool matches us up with the 4th place team, which was Clark County again (sigh...). Nevertheless, I talked to the girls about playing hard no matter what the score was. While they played hard, Clark County was just too tough for us and the beat us 25-16, 25-10. We played OK in the match, but their athleticism coupled with some poor passing on our part led to the defeat.

So overall, we ended a respectable 4-3. When I look back on my goals for the tournament, I felt we did what we needed to do. We figured out our lineups and also figured each other out. I have a better feel for how the girls play and they know what my expectations and style are.

As a team, we served close to 85% of our serves in. Not too bad, considering that I always give them zones to hit, and some of them are pretty tough (2&4... ask your daughter!) I would like to see our percentage in up in the 90% area, so we will continue to work on that.

As I said earlier, I am very excited about the way this team played together. The great attitudes and chemistry will help us through the long club season.

Individually, the girls did some pretty awesome stuff. Sidney showed everyone what a great passer she was by nailing the majority of balls hit her way while Kelli and Laina offense really stood out. Not only did they hit well, they both served at a 95% in pace, with Kelli serving with the highest score, a 2.13 ... awesome! Karson had a BB tournament, so she had limited playing time but she took full advantage by serving a perfect 100% in! Our first 100%er for the year. Great job Karson!

Our setters, Sky, Kayla and Molly did a very good job of getting to most of the playable passes and putting them up for our hitters. In addition, the set the 9(back set to the RS) quite a bit. Usually my teams are afraid to try this difficult set, but these girls didn't know that, so they set it at will. Sky's serving was right at the 89% line so she did well there. They all were a bit timid when it came to the setter dump, but Kayla tried it numerous times with great success. Then there is Molly... who knew she could hit those short serves over and over? (OK, I knew... but did you?) Even when we played the really good teams, she would hit the short serve that more often than not, got us a free ball on the first return. Now we need to put that free ball away!

Our middle blockers Rachel and Amanda were great. Usually there is a net call or two on at our first tournament, but not these two, they were perfect at the net. We even got our first stuff block! On the second day, Rachel timed a middle attack perfectly and she blocked it straight down in front of the hitter. Woo-woo! Unfortunately, the chairs prevented Rachel from unleashing her jump serve... I can't wait to see more of that! Amanda played hard and smart all three days and is going to force to deal with as she gains confidence and skill.

And then there's Courtney. Where would we be without her anchoring the back row? She really played well, nailing pass after pass. In addition to the great back row play, she took advantage of her limited serving by only missing one serve over the 3 days, earning her an in rate of 93%. We are very fortunate to have such a solid Libero on our team.

So, a good start to what I hope is going to be a great season. We have lots to work on on Wednesday before our Power League Qualifier. Look for more back row attacks, higher sets, setter dumps and free balls taken on our hands. Speaking of the Power League, we are at the Courts in Beaverton. We play at 8:00, so plan on arriving NLT 7:15. We "get" to play the #1 team in the region, PVC Red and the team that beat us twice, Clark Count 14 Black. Woo-woo! It will be a good challenge to see how we respond to the competetion!

If anyone needs directions, go here!
http://www.columbiaempirevolleyball.com/about/directions/index.html

I sent a flyer home talking about the hotel I am staying at with the girls. If you want to see it, look in their book!

So that's aboout it. See you all on Sunday!

Go Webfoot!

MLK Monday Schedule

2010-01-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

We went 3-0 Sunday, Woo-woo! The teams we played were not very good, but we took care of business.
We ended all the pool play ranked 4th, so we get a bye the first round. We play at 1:00, arrive NLT 12:00.

Go Webfoot!

MLK Sunday Schedule

2010-01-16T22:48:00.000-08:00

We went 1-2 our first day, beating a team not as good as us and losing to 2 teams that were clearly better. Saw a lot of good stuff today (along with some... opportunities). While we missed a few more serves than I like, they did a pretty good job hitting their zones. Our passing was pretty good, serve recieve a bit shaky at times and we had a few defensive lapses... but since the was our first competetion, I think we did pretty good.

Sunday - Arrive NLT 2:00. We play at 3:00, court 11. After that is a bit of a mystery,,, we'll sort it out tomorrow.

Go Webfoot!

Babies

2010-01-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

The babies here! The weighed in at 4lbs 15 ounces each. Olivia and Lucy are doing great.... so is mom.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

Ho..ho...ho! Wishing you all a very merry Christmas.

I posted some pics on our webpage, check them out!

Norm

XMAS Break

2009-12-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

Had a great practice today... although the girls may not have appreciated all the running! I hope you all have a great break (don't forget your approaches!). See you all on Jan 4th.

Dec 14/16

2009-12-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!
I thought I would post a 14 Silver pic from a few years ago displaying what 14 Silver is all about. Michelle and Katie are executing a perfect pancake, and Emily and and Sophia are ready to continue the play! Great job girls!

I posted the girls heights and positions on the web. Check it out to make sure I have it right.

Dec 14th - At this practice we will be short a couple of players because of the scorekeepers clinic, but we'll make do.

Dec 16th - I have a little something fun for this day... might be a good day to bring your camera.

Dec 17th-Jan 3rd - We're off, no practice!

Dec 7 & 9

2009-12-08T18:52:00.001-08:00

Hey 14 Silver!

With a couple of practices under our belt, we're about ready to really get going. The girls are getting my style figured out and are working hard. The last practice was pretty slow and boring (serve receive positions), but the good news is that we won't devote a whole practice to that again.

Expect a lot of defense and transition work on Wednesday.

Go Webfoot!

Welcome

2009-11-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

Hi 14 Silver! It was really great meeting all of you last week, I can't wait for the season to start. I'll use this blog to communicate upcoming events, do tournament summaries and to post any other random thing that comes up during the season.

The first thing I want to communicate is that our team webpage is up w/ our roster and tournament schedule. Check it out by going to www.webfootjuniors.com , select TEAMS, then 14 SILVER. There is a link to this blog as well as a link to our photo gallery (once we get some pics!)

I will let you know about our first meeting, Novemebr 30th, when I get a little more information.

Again, I can't wait for the season to start... Go Webfoot!

Season Wrap Up

2009-05-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Just returned from the Bayview Classic in San Fransisco. We went into the tournament seeded 11th. Our pool consisted of Delta Valley Blue 14-1 (the #3 seed), Golden Bear Blue 14-1(the #6 seed) us (the #11 seed) and NorCal Black 13-1 (the #14 seed).

A couple of things threw us off a bit right off the start... first we had to learn the California protocol. Instead of circling the court and shaking hands, the entire team had to walk to the center of the court and wave to fans, then shake hands one at a time at the net. No big deal, but the other thing that threw us was that we discovered our Libero (Sarah) wasn't allowed to serve. We adjusted the lineups quickly, sometime putting Sarah in as a Libero, and sometimes as a DS.

While we played pretty well in pool play, we followed form and ended the morning the same place as we started, 11th. We lost to the #3 and #6, and beat the # 14. The highlight of the morning was that we put 21 points in game 2 against Golden Bear (the eventual tournament champions).

After pool play, we headed off to get cleaned up for a limo ride over the Golden gate bridge and dinner at the Rainforest Cafe'. Who knew the girls cleaned up so nice!

Sunday had us against the #22, #27 and the #38. It was a bit disappointing since we anted an opportunity to move up, but we took care of business and swept pool play to maintain or seed.

Ending Sunday 11th, put us in the play-in championship bracket. (A place I have never been before!) Being the #11, we were pitted against the #5, Delta Valley Blue 13-1. Again, we played pretty well, but Delta Valley was just to much for us.

So the loss put us in the #9-#16 bracket. Our first opponent was the #13, Tandem Blue. They were a very small team, but had good ball control. We took advantage of our size and got numerous blocks and awesome kills as we went on to a 3-game win. So, still at #11, we then played the #10, Saddleback Chris. This was a real back and forth match, but in the end, we just ran out of gas and lost in 3.

So in all the games we played, we never moved from our #11 spot... we started there and ended there. While disappointed that we didn't move up, I am ecstatic that we ended #11, my highest finish ever. usually my teams end in the mid 20's to low 30's, so this #11 finish was pretty awesome.

All kinds of things go through my mind when I think about this season:
1 Power League tournament win
1 Power League 2nd place
1 Tournament Win (Oregon Juniors)
1 Consolation Win (Rose City)
1 Division Win WVC
Playing 14 Gold tough (losing 25-23, 26-24).

Without a doubt, this was the most successful team I have ever had. However, our success on the court isn't what I'm going to remember, it's the girls themselves. Whether it's Natalie spitting water all over the team at the Willamette Valley Classic; RaeChelle jumping into a spectators lap; Sarah referring to her sibling as her "idiot brother"; Dani frantically trying to remove her bandage to play; Michelle getting her shoes tied together so tight, she couldn't get the untied; RaeChelle getting a finger wag from an official; Sabrina getting blinded by the sun after an attack; or the whole team comparing belly-buttons between games... these are the things I will remember.

So, without getting too maudlin, I want to thank the girls for being who they are. They truly were a special group.

So, next up... Monday, 5:30 at the Churchill outdoor courts for a BBQ!

After that, The Webfoot BBQ at Camp Harlow, June 7th, 2:00-5:00!

Go Webfoot!