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I got an e-mail from a friend a while back that had this line in it:

“Last year ‘my daughter’ was on the “C” team.  They put her on “B” this year.  Hopefully, this means that the club league and the volleyball camp were worth it.”

That line got me wondering, when he says ‘worth it’, what does he mean?  What does he expect his daughter to get out of playing club volleyball and attending volleyball camps?  At what point does the time and money commitment for a kid to play club volleyball out weigh the advantages of playing club ball?

That got me to thinking about my own daughters playing volleyball.  That’s right I said daughters, plural.  I have one daughter playing high school and club volleyball and her younger sister who is just starting middle school volleyball and is thinking about club ball.  So I had to ask myself, what do I expect to get out of the time and money that my family is spending, or is going to spend, into them playing this sport?  What is ‘worth it’ to me?  What is worth it to my daughters?

I am a parent with a daughter(s) playing club volleyball; I am also a club/middle school coach and a club director.  My oldest daughter does not play for my volleyball club.  So while I expect parents to make a huge time and money commitment for their daughters to play on my club volleyball team.  I am also expected to make the same time and money commitment to my daughter’s volleyball club experience.

As a parent, ‘worth it’ means a lot to me.  I expect my daughter to improve her volleyball skills.  I expect her to improve her overall physical fitness.  But most of all, to me, ‘worth it’ means if she is exercising regularly in a manner that she enjoys, and she is so busy trying to keep up with volleyball practices, volleyball tournaments, and homework that she doesn’t have time to be getting into trouble.  Then it is ‘worth it’, regardless of the cost, regardless of where the sport takes her. 

Does my daughter have to be a starter on varsity, or on the ‘A’ team or the best volleyball player in town for club volleyball to be ‘worth it’?  In a word – No!  Would I like club volleyball to turn my daughter into a state champion or a super athlete who has college recruiters beating down our door?  Of course I would.  What parent doesn’t want that for their young volleyball player?  But that is not what I expect from club volleyball.  That is not why my daughter is playing.  My daughter is playing because she loves the game.  I am paying for her to play because I love that she loves the game.  But I also love that she is fit, she is healthy, and she is spending her free time doing something she loves.  She is hanging around with and forming friendships with like-minded peers and she is too busy to be bored and hence getting into trouble to alleviate that boredom.  As a parent that is what makes the time and money I commit to club volleyball ‘worth it’.

That is my parent answer to what is ‘worth it’.  As a volleyball coach and a club director, what should I tell parents to expect from their daughter’s club volleyball experience that will make it ‘worth it’ to them.

I always tell the club parents if you are here - thinking that playing club ball will get your daughter onto the high school team, or eventually onto a college team - then you are here for the wrong reasons.  A corollary to that statement is “Any club coach or director who tells you that they can get your daughter onto a certain team, or get them a chance to play in college or get them a scholarship.  Unless that coach or director is in charge of the program they are promising your daughter a chance to play on - they are lying to you.”  No one can honestly promise those things and expect to deliver.  There are too many factors involved in who makes what team, who gets scholarships, and who is successful and who is not, that are completely out of club coach’s or director’s control.

There is a lot that goes into a school coach picking a team.  Coaches have to evaluate a player’s athletic skills, their volleyball skills, their attitudes, their work ethic and their personality.  Trying to explain how coaches make those kinds of decisions would take volumes.  I will leave that up to someone else with much more experience than I, to write about it.

So if a parent and their child are not supposed to expect club volleyball to make their child an all-star, a varsity standout, or a college ready player, what should they expect from playing club volleyball?

You should expect to:

Work hard, play hard, sweat, hurt, ache, laugh, cry, be happy, be sad, and hopefully to have a lot of fun in the process.  You should expect to have days when you hate to go to practice and you should expect to have days when you can’t wait to get there. You should expect to win some volleyball games and you should be ready to lose some.

You should expect to learn new things.  You should expect to have to teach things to others (including your coach).  You should be open to new ideas and to adopting new things and making them comfortable old habits.

You should expect to jump, hop, leap, dive, roll, slide, skid, run, skip, shuffle, sprint, crouch, spike, slam, tip, dink, pass, set, serve, shank, miss, hit, block, bump, crash, lift, shove, push, pull, weave, wobble, topple, stagger, swagger, accept, reject, laugh, cry, boast, brag, apologize, agonize, celebrate, commiserate, rejoice, revel, rebel, talk, hug, glare, grin, smile, sneer, talk, shout, yell, groan and grimace.

If you try to do all those things, you will learn how to be a better volleyball player.  You will learn how to be a better teammate. You will learn how to win, how to lose, how to fail and how to succeed at a lot more than just volleyball.

You will make new friends.  You will make new enemies.  You will learn how to deal with both.  And if you are lucky, and you are paying attention, you might just get to know yourself a little bit better.

And after all that, you might, if countless different factors all come together just right, you might get a chance to play volleyball in high school and/or maybe even in college or beyond.  But club volleyball can’t promise you that.  It can only promise you the opportunity to try and the opportunity to play.  Where those opportunities take you and what you get out of it – is up to you.

The one aspect of coaching our Starlings team this last season that I really missed was the opportunity to take pictures of the team. If you check the scrapbook page on this site you will find a lot of pictures there. But very few of them were taken by me. Most of them we taken with my camera that was being used by one of the parents.

When going through all the pictures that were taken this year putting together a photo slideshow for the players I picked through the pictures that I did take and picked out some of my favorites. Most of these pictures were taken before or after matches, or during events that the team participated in off the volleyball court.

My favorite picture of the year was this one of Ashley, a seventh grade setter who was demonstrating a talent that I didn’t know she had:

Then there was Laura, just being laura:

Alyssa’s ever present smile:

Sammi and Maggie being friends:

Ashley again, this time upright.

Sammi’s little sister, helping out with a scrimmage:

The Ridgecrest Starlings dancing at the Opening Ceremonies for the National Championships in San Diego:

If you want nice candid shots of Sammi you have to catch her when she is not looking. A fraction of a second after this photo was taken the smile was gone and she was hiding behind the green post:

Over the course of the season different parents or I took over 6 GB of pictures of our Ridgecrest Starlings. Each girl on the team got an eletronic copy of all the pictures. These eight were just my favorites of the pictures I took.

An unofficial motto of the Starlings Organization is

Giving Girls A Chance To Fly

Well here are some of our Ridgecrest Starlings working on their flying….

14’s Division

1     Phoenix Kati          Gold Champion
2     Tuba City
3     San Gabriel Mike
4     SD Navajo Randy
T5     Ridgecrest
T5     Tehachapi
T7     Scripps Ranch Jimmy
T7     South Bay
9     Bakersfield          Silver Champion
10     Oakland
11     Ramona Luis
12     Chicago Lakefront
13     Shonto
14     Santee Ricky
T15     SD Navajo Allie
T15     Eastlake
17     Clairemont Mandy          Bronze Champion
18     San Gabriel K
19     SD Navajo Bob
20     Baltimore
21     South Central LA
22     University City
23     SD Navajo Karen          Copper Champion
24     Clairemont Kate
25     Mission Bay
26     Lakeside Andrea
27     Phoenix Tanya
28     Ramona Jim
29     Toledo
30     San Diego City
31     Watsonville          Flight 1 Champion
32     Santee Moe
33     Redwood City
34     Scripps Ranch Mike
35     Lakeside Ashley
36     SD Navajo Maureen

My volleyball team and I left last Wednesday for the Starlings National Championships in San Diego.

We started our adventure at the opening ceremonies at Sweetwater high school. The place was jamb packed with Starlings Volleyball players, their coaches and parents. There was a parade of banners, a lot of dancing, laughing and just overall good fun by all.

The next morning we started pool play at the Alliant Sports Center. This is a large canvas roofed building that is big enough to hold 12 volleyball courts. Unfortunately this facility is not air conditioned. This became important as the weather in San Diego was unseasonably warm this week. By the time the first round of pool play was half over it was well over 90 degrees in the building and very humid.

Our day started off a little strange. We were on the court warming up waiting for our opponents from Watsonville CA to show up. We were there, a San Diego Navajo team that was going to be refereeing our match was there, and a team from Mission Bay San Diego. But there was no sign of our opponents. So the other two teams sat there and watched us warm up for a few minutes. Eventually we started scrimmaging with the Navajo team because we were all bored. After twenty minutes the tournament official declared our match a forfeit and we recorded our first win of the tournament without even seeing our opponents.

Next up we had to referee the match between the Navajo team and the Mission Bay team. Our Watsonville opponents showed up in the middle of this match. They had all been riding in the same van that got lost on the freeways in San Diego.

Next up we played the Mission Bay Starlings team. We cruised to an easy 25-4 win in the first game on the backs of Laura and her 11 consecutive serves followed by Alyssa fired off 7 of her own including three jump serve aces. The next game we got a little complacent and allowed our opponents to hang around way too long before we finally beat them 25-18.

Unfortunately that complacency carried over to our next match against the San Diego Navajo Starlings team. We let them get a 23-14 lead over us before we finally started to play. With Jazmine serving seven straight serves our team managed to close the game to 21 to 23 before they finally scored their last two points to win the game. The second game we started out like we finished the previous game – hot! We stormed out to a fast lead in the game and held a 23-20 lead when everyone just shut down and stopped moving. Our opponents outscored us five to two in the last couple minutes to win 25-27.

This 2-1 performance was enough to get us a second place finish in our pool. This put us in the division with the top 18 teams of the tournament, which was all the number 1 and number 2 finishers on Thursday.

On Friday we were in a pool with teams from Phoenix Az, Oakland CA and Bakersfield CA. We played at the Balboa Park Activities Center which like Alliant University also didn’t have any air conditioning. It did however have a little better ventilation than Alliant did so to start it seemed a little cooler inside to start. But by the end of the match it was just as hot as Alliant.

Our first match was against the Oakland team. Both teams started a little slow but the Oakland team warmed up a bit quicker than we did. They won the first game 22-25. But once we got going they discovered what kind of team we really were. We won the second game 25-15. In the third and deciding game the team slacked off again and needed six serves including three aces from Rebecca in order to win the game 15-13.

Our second game was against the Phoenix team. There were so far the best team we had faced in the tournament. We started out a little slow and eventually lost the first game 19-25. But the girls got going again in the second game and took an early lead. But we once again slowed down in the end and lost that game 22-25.

The Bakersfield team was our last challenge of the afternoon. We eventually won a slow and error filled first game 25-21. Then sleep walked our way through a crushing 14-25 loss. But the team woke up and really came out serving and hitting in the third and final game. We changed sides of the court with an 8-3 lead and cruised to and easy 15-7 victory. After the match our referee, Ernie, who is the National Starlings ambassador, called the team over and congratulated them on a spectacular performance. He was very impressed with how well out team full of young players held their cool and didn’t get flustered after that big loss in the second game.

Once again we found ourselves with a 2-1 record and a second place finish. And just like yesterday it was enough to keep us in the top division with all the other first and second finishers.

On Saturday we were one of the eight teams that entered the Gold Championship double elimination part of the tournament for a chance to play for the U14 tournament championship.

Our first match of the day was against the Tehachapi U14 team. This team had also played in the Southern California Volleyball Tournament season with us. But we had never played each other. They were always ranked one to two divisions below us in the standings. But they had finished the season strong and didn’t look to be a push over team. I was hopeful when they took the court because they also had two girls who looked like they were no older than the three eleven year olds on our team. However, those younger smaller players never got onto the court for their team, where all three of young players play – a lot.

Unfortunately Saturday was not to be our day. I don’t know if it was the heat, the humidity, the three consecutive days of volleyball, or the fact that my normally tight, best friends, team that has gotten along fantastically all season was suddenly fractured into three distinct factions that were not getting along on or off the court. I have several ideas about what happened to my team but I’m not going to air them here. But their off the court disagreements and bickering carried over onto the court in a huge way this day and brought a very unsatisfying end to our season.

Our match was against Tehachapi who was playing well but not nearly as well as our team was capable of when they were getting along. Unfortunately we were not getting along, we were not moving, and my players were acting like they really didn’t care if they won or lost. And so they lost – 16-25 and 19-25.

Following that match we had to ref a match. It was a very uncomfortable time because I had to down ref for the match and I was very aware of my team that was sitting on the floor behind me keeping score with a lot of glaring going on and no one talking to each other.

This loss moved us down to the loser bracket of the championship division. We had to play a match against a team called Scripps Ranch from the San Diego area. They were also having a bad day. At times they seem to be a fairly good team who was struggling with the heat and humidity. We squeaked out a 25-21 win in the first game and that seem to really deflate our opponents. They pretty much just phoned in their last game of the weekend and we cruised to a 25-12 victory and a chance to keep playing.

We got a three minute break after the match and had to play our last match of the day against the same Phoenix team we had played on Friday. This team was really down. They had been undefeated going into the day and had just lost their first match of the season to an undersized Navajo team from Tuba City AZ. When they walked over to our court they were all shuffling their feet and walking with their head down. They looked like a bunch of whipped puppies.

I tried to rally the team to step up and start playing together like they used to. But it just wasn’t to be. We gave up 6 consecutive serve aces to start the game and that got our opponents fired up. And as fast as they got excited we crashed. We lost the first game 17-25 and the second 15-25.

Our run at our first ever Starling National Championship ended in a two way tie for fifth place. It was not the ending of the season I was hoping for. But overall it wasn’t a bad finish. We started this season as a first time team with first time club players and a first time club coach. The players learned to trust each other, work together and cooperate as a team. In the end we forgot some of the lessons we had learned but we competed in a tournament with Starlings team from all over the country and finished in a tie for 5th place out of 36 teams.

My dear wife ran out this evening to pick our son up from his Boy Scout Meeting. They arrived home around 8:40 and closed the garage door and turned off the exterior lights.

Then about 30 minutes later my dear wife is filling the coffee maker for the morning and she glances out the window and notices something white fluttering in the breeze in the front yard. She looks closer out the window and announces “In the 30 minutes since I got home, someone TPed our house.”

So I hauled my tired old carcass out of the chair and wandered over to look out the window. While I was looking out the window, my dear wife had walked over and opened the front door. Sure enough, I looked out the window and there was toilet paper fluttering all around the trees and shrubs in the front yard. As I turned to walk toward the door my wife stepped away from the door and whispered, I think there is still someone out there.

So I grabbed a weapon to defend myself with - my camera, and headed out the door. As I walked down the sidewalk I saw a familiar looking shape scamper around and hide behind the neighbors car. Then I heard the familiar sound of a bird in my tree. Peering closely up into the wind blown branches I discovered a rare sight, there was a Starling was in my tree.

As I snapped this picture the Starling in my tree serenaded me with it’s famous call of “Hi Coach!”

Glancing around the yard I quickly found several other Starlings doing what Starling do best - having fun.

Eventually I managed to get a picture of the whole flock together as they plotted their next caper. But then just as fast as they gathered together the whole flock scattered back around my yard.

As the flock of Starlings fluttered around my yard I managed to snap a few more pictures of their handiwork. For a brief moment the adult homeowner in me started thinking about all the cleaning I was going to have to do in the morning. But it is hard to be irritated with Starlings who are leaving “We love you Coach” signs scattered all over your property.

These Starlings, even though they were up to mischief, were being smart. They had left my new car alone. But that all changed when they asked if they could paint the windows on my new car and for some weird unknown reason I told them yes. I’m glad I did because the windshield ended up with this:

If you are not fluent in reading windshield it says:

Starlings Rock, and sometimes we shoulder roll

That’s my Starlings, and I wouldn’t trade them for all the TP in my trees, the plastic forks and spoons in my grass and the window paint on my glass.

Thank you ladies. I hope you all had fun.

I did.

The Ridgecrest Starlings Volleyball Club U14 team completed the Southern California Volleyball Association tournament season last weekend by participating in the SCVA U 14s Regionals Tournament.

The Starlings were seeded 32nd out of 32 teams in the Brass Region. On Saturday the Starlings began their weekend playing on Court A1 at the American Sports Center in Anaheim, CA. During team warm-ups the Ridgecrest Starlings managed to sprain an offhand finger on one of their outside hitters, sprain the right shoulder of a defensive specialist, and one of their starting setters took a solid spike to the face just two minutes before the first match started.

The Ridgecrest Starlings were in a pool with the 1st seed team from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club, the 16th seed team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club and the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club from the San Fernando Valley.

Reeling from the sudden onslaught of injuries the Starlings set out to do something they had not needed to do all season – play hurt. In their opening match against the San Gabriel Volleyball Club the Starlings put on an almost flawless team serving performance, with four members of the team delivering serving streaks of six or more serves. Strong performances by defensive specialists Jazmine Stenger-Smith and Brooke Nelepovitz led their team to a first match victory, 25-14 and 25-14. Nelepovitz valiantly tried to end the second game from the serving line with six consecutive serves that included 3 aces before her injured shoulder gave out and ended her serving opportunities for the weekend.

Next up was the 1st seed in the region from the Moreno Beach Volleyball Club. Maggie Champeny led the charge in this match with over 12 serves and a solid spiking performance proving to her teammates that her injured finger was not going to slow her down that weekend. Unfortunately the Starlings came up short in this match 21-25 and 22-25.

The last match of the day was against the 17th seed team from the SHS Volleyball Club in the San Fernando Valley, which having already beaten both the other teams in this pool was looking ahead to an easy first place finish. The Ridgecrest Starlings rallied behind their team Captains Sammi Anderson and Alyssa Ochoa who combined for an impressive 25 serves. Stifling blocks by Miss Ochoa, Laura Metcalf and Ashley Sherrick drove the Starlings to a loud and exciting 25-19 and 25-20 victory.

The Starlings ended their first day in a three way tie, at 2-1, for first in their pool with the Moreno Valley and SHS teams. The first tie breaker was game record which eliminated the Moreno Valley Team. The Starlings won the second tie breaker over SHS to take the day, and retire to a family BBQ at their motel to celebrate their upset filled day.

Day two of the tournament had the Starlings playing at CSU Dominguez Hills as the new number one seed against another team from the San Gabriel Volleyball Club, a team from the Rancho Santa Margarita Volleyball Club and a team from the Bakersfield Club Jamba team.

Again the Starlings started the day by playing strong against another San Gabriel Volleyball Club team. Highlighting the first game was the serving of Rebecca Dwyer and Ashley Sherrick leading their team to another 25-14 victory. The serving duties in the second game were picked up by Laura Metcalf and Maggie Champeny. While Ashley Sherrick added seven kills for a 25-15 win.

The second match of the day was against the Bakersfield Club Jamba team. This match was the first real let down for the Starlings. They struggled to a 20-25 loss in the first game and completely lost track of themselves in the second game to lose it 9-25.

After a two match break the Starlings were back on the court against the Rancho Santa Margarita team. Powerful serving by Anderson, Metcalf and Champeny and strong front row play from Sherrick and Champeny led the Starlings to 25-15 and 25-20 win.

For the second time in two days the Ridgecrest Starlings found themselves in a three way tie for first at 2-1. However this time the tie-breakers did not go their way and they had to settle for a second place finish. But that was good enough to put the Starlings in the upper bracket of the region’s tournament quarter-finals.

In the afternoon’s quarter-finals bracket the Starlings faced a tall, strong team from the Temecula Volleyball Club in a one game to 25 single elimination match. The Starlings stayed with the Temecula team until the game was tied 9-9 but asking for a fifth upset victory in two days was apparently too much and Temecula slowly pulled away from the Starlings to win the game 25-18.

The Ridgecrest Starlings started the weekend ranked 32 out of 32 teams and returned home to Ridgecrest Sunday evening tied for 5th place in the region. By any standards this weekend’s volleyball tournament was a resounding success for this young team.

This tournament marked the end of the SCVA season. But the Ridgecrest Starlings aren’t finished yet. They have finals, the end of the school year, middle school promotions, the start of summer and only three more weeks to get ready for the Starlings National Championship in San Diego. In a four day event starting on June 19th the Ridgecrest Starlings will compete against some of the best Starlings U14 teams from all over the United States.

Sorry for not getting this posted earlier. I had to get things prepared for Sports Night at St. Ann School.

Mandatory No. 5 found our Starlings back in Division 12. we had briefly played in division 12 back in Mandatory No. 2. The results then were not pretty. After finishing first in Mandatory 4 we were elevated again to Division 12. I was looking forward to this opportunity. We are a much better team now than we were back in March. However, the teams that are in Division 12 now, were also much better teams than they were a couple months ago.

We played at Gahr High School in Cerritos, CA. Gahr High School is right at the intersection of the 605 and 91 freeways. So we had a ways to travel to get there on Saturday morning. Fortunately we were the number four seed in our pool, so we didn’t have to play or officiate the first match. We arrived at the gym around 8 AM. This means that I missed the coaches meeting so I didn’t get to be lectured for the 8th time this season about not letting my team trash the gym, climb on things that are not meant to be climbed on, or take too long on the court. Remember folks we are there to play volleyball and we are there to play it quickly.

Our first match of the day was against the Cal Jrs 14-C team. This team eventually won our pool. They were a good eye-opening experience for my players. This was really the first team we have ever faced that served like a volleyball game is supposed to be served. Of the 9 players on their roster, six of them could fire hard, serves that cleared the net by only inches. They could also hit those serves where ever they wanted them to go. Their coach watched our team during warm-ups and for the first few minutes of play then she started directing her servers where to serve. They immediately targeted both of the younger players that I had playing in the back row. As a result, my two younger players spent most of this match getting creamed by hard serves.

Of course I had options to try and stop this. I could have called time outs to try and ice the server. But in my experience that seldom works if the server is truly good at what she is doing. Icing a server only works with a weaker server who suddenly finds themselves on a hot streak. Usually taking a time out during a hard service run is done more to allow the receiving team a few moments to collect themselves and to get ready to play again. I also could have subbed those players out of the game. But all that would accomplish is to teach them that I don’t have any faith in their ability to handle a tough situation.

So I kept a close watch on my young players and let them get pounded, as long as they didn’t start losing faith in themselves. Four times on that Saturday I watch these two young players get repeatedly hit with rocket serves and after four or five shanked receive attempts I would finally start to see their shoulders droop or their faces start looking at the floor. Each time I would give them one more receive then I was going to call for a sub and get them out of there before they completely lost faith in themselves. Every time I decided that it was time to pull that struggling player they would manage to pop one of those hard serves back into the air and suddenly we were playing volleyball again.

Yes, we had a hard time handling our opponent’s serves. And yes, we didn’t dominate our opponents with our serves the way we had done in some previous matches. But once the ball was received and in play, we were every bit as good or better team than our opponents were. Our defense was as good as our opponents and our hitting and blocking was better than any of the three teams we faced that day. In all three matches we played, by the middle of the first game our opponents were not hitting, and not blocking and any aggressiveness at the net that they may have shown early in the match was non-existent by the end of the match.

We lost our first match to the Cal Jrs. 18-25 and 15-25. Which isn’t bad playing against a team that had recorded four consecutive division 12, 2nd place finishes in the first four mandatory tournaments. Especially considering that our serves were not working and we were really struggling on serve receives.

Our second match was against a team from the Impact Volleyball Club. This team was having a rough year. They started in Division 8 for Mandatory 1. After 4 straight 4th place finishes they were finally down to division 12. But this does not mean that this was a bad team. They were good enough to have won at least one match in division 8, 10 and 11 on their way to division 12. Again we were facing a team that served a lot better than we were receiving. Again, we were facing a team that was targeting those serves at our younger players.

We managed to get a few more of those hard serves into the air where our offense could go to work. As a team we only committed three service errors and our hitting kept the game close. We were down 23-24 when Sammi crushed a spike right at the back line of their court. Everyone on the court looked at the linesman who was very obviously not paying attention to the game. This clueless 14 year old waffled back and forth between signaling in or out for a few seconds. Then she looked at our opponents and noticed all of them signaling out. So she joined in and signaled out. The referee who’s line of sight was blocked on the play went along with his linesman call. Game over 23-25. After the match three different people who were paying attention told me that the spike was in by at least 6 inches. Oh well. We had given up 24 other points in that game to get us into that situation. But I am getting really tired of coaches who will send players out onto a court to call lines or keep score without making sure that first) their players know what they are doing, and secondly) who will not stick around and keep an eye on their players to make sure they are paying attention.

This close loss seemed to encourage our opponents a bit. They played better in the second game. They definitely served a lot better. I think they realized that their hard serves were their best offensive weapon to use against us. Eventually they won that game 17-25.

Our third match was against the No. 3 seed in our pool, a team from the Stealth Volleyball Club. This team had played the last two tournaments in division 12 after starting the season in division 10. So again they had a lot of experience playing against higher division teams. The only difference was that while they also had great servers, they had the same difficulties receiving hard serves as we did.

During the two games we played against them we had 5 different servers with service runs of more than 5 serves in a row. Once our Starlings figured out that they could match this team serve for serve they got a rush that really pumped up our hitting game. We won both of these games 25-15 and 25-17.

The most entertaining part of this match was watching the referee unload on the Cal Jrs. Coach because of the lousy job her team was doing of keeping score accurately and for missing very obvious line calls. If only he had cracked down earlier in the match a couple of the close games that had been played (with and without us being involved) would have turned out differently. We were not the only team that day to suffer from missed calls by linesmen who were not paying attention.

The final match of the day we had to call lines and score keep for the Cal Jr. vs Impact match. I was very pleased with the job my players did that match. Afterwards the referee congratulated our team on their diligence and attention. He told the team “If more 14s teams would take their officiating responsibilities as seriously as you do, my job would be much easier.” I was also thanked by two other sets of parents from other teams for having players who obviously knew what they were doing and paid attention the entire match. I was very proud of our players.

In the end we were 1-2 in matches, and finished in 3rd place. This was a great 3rd place finish. We faced a couple very good teams who were very good at exploiting our weaknesses. We managed stay in division 12 and in the process prove that we do belong there.

The best compliment I received at the end of the day came from a couple parents from the Stealth team. They loved the way our entire team stayed positive, upbeat and focused during the both the matches we were losing and the match we won.

When the schedule came out for Mandatory 4 we were scheduled to play at Citrus College.  This was a wonderful location for us.  It is one of the closest to home locations that we could draw, and the start time was delayed until 9 AM.  Which meant that we would not have to leave town until around 6 AM which is much better than our usual 4-5 AM departure times.  But the day after the schedule came out it changed.   Suddenly we were scheduled to play at TBD.  Man, I really hate playing at TBD, the facilities there are really bad.

Finally on Friday, a third schedule was released and we were scheduled to play at the Home Depot Center in Carson CA at 8 AM.  So we were back to a 4:45 departure time in order to get there in time.

We were the number two team in the pool which meant that we didn’t play until the second match, but we had to officiate the first match, so at least five of our players had to be at the Home Depot Center by 8 AM.

For those of you who have never played volleyball at the Home Depot Center it is a really unique environment to play in.  The Home Depot Center is also known as the Los Angeles Velodrome.  The Velodrome is a large indoor wooden bicycle race track.  The infield of the track is a large enough space that they can set up 5 volleyball courts in it.  Last year the U16s team my daughter was on played a tournament in the Velodrome.  I hated it.  The parents have to stay off the court.  So they sit outside the bicycle track and watch the volleyball games from over 100 feet away.  Between the spectators and the courts is a large black net that keeps the balls from flying out onto the bicycle track.  However, this year being down on the court as a coach I didn’t mind the place so much.  There is plenty of room around the courts, it’s actually kind of quiet down there.  And the roof is really high, there are no overhead obstructions to get in the way.  This however did bother a few of our players.  They felt like they were playing in a really large fishbowl.  Which is actually pretty fitting.  The hitters and setters took a little time to adjust to the fact that the roof was so far away.

Our pool for the tournament consisted of teams from Bakersfield, Victorville and Pasadena.  So the Arroyo team from Pasadena was the only team that didn’t have to deal with a long drive that morning.

In our first match against the Arroyo Volleyball Club Team from Pasadena.  Our Starlings started out a little slow, but quickly got organized and got used to the size of the venue we were playing in.  They won that first match in two games - (25-18 and 25-15).  Following that match we had our only break of the day.  Then it was back on the court for a match against the Bakersfield Volleyball Club.  The match my players looked a little more like the team I was used to seeing.  Which is not a good thing.  After winning the first game 25-19 the girls slacked off a little and tried to take it easy for the second game.  This led to a 19-25 loss in the second game, and for the first time this season actually started a little bit of barking and snapping at each other on the court.  Fortunately they were able to get things together for the third game.  We played pretty even until the side change then my front row took over the game and we ran away with a 15-11 victory.

Following that match was our second officiating duty of the day, then our last match.

The final match of the pool was the 2-0, number one seed team from the White Lightening Volleyball Club in Victorville CA against our also 2-0 Ridgecrest Starlings.  The way the other matches had worked out this match was for first place.  The loser was going to finish in second.  Our servers came out of the shoot hot in this match and when we really started spiking the game ended quickly - 25-16.  Unfortunately that quick easy win led my still young and relatively inexperienced players to think that they second game would be just as easy.  It wasn’t.  In a back and forth game where our opponents pretty much abandoned their attacking offense in favor of playing defense to counter our attackers both teams stayed close most of the game.  Eventually we gained a small lead and held on for a 25-22 victory.

This left us in 1st place and will move us up to division 12 in two weeks.  I hope my girls are ready for that.  So far this season the only tournament that was not a first or second place finish for us was Mandatory 2, the one and only time we played in division 12.

Highlights for the day were Alyssa serving 36 times with zero errors and Ashley recording 13 aces in just 30 serves.   Oh, and the ice cream I had to buy, because they finished first place again.  Yeah, I know I guy who is supposed to be teaching them about healthy lifestyle choices buying them ice creams seems a little contradictory.  But what the heck, it they keep winning, I’ll keep buying ice cream.

Sunday morning we left Ridgecrest around 5:30 AM and headed for Ganesha High School in Pomona for a Starlings Volleyball Tournament hosted by the Starlings Pomona Volleyball Club.