We met at the old Von’s parking lot at the usual time. As the team was hit by the injury bug, we wanted to make sure that we had six players. There was no room for injuries or absences, and the team was very thankful to have the services of Samantha Harrison. Cerritos College was a little better than the last venue in that at least we had a private court.

Match 1

True to form the team played like they had just arrived from a 2.5 hour drive. They woke up when they were behind 17-6 to Antelope Valley, but the team lost the game 14-25. There were 5 service errors and 4 aces against.

The second game started out much better. Brooke served 11 serves with no misses and 5 aces and Samantha contributed with 5 serves, no misses and 3 aces. The Starlings won 25-13.

The third game was, thankfully, not much of a contest. Allie lead servers with 7 serves, 3 aces. The newly awoken Starlings won 15-4.

Match 2

This match was against the “Green Volleyball Club”, who had just arrived from bracket 14. Green had an excellent Setter who was wreaking havoc all day. Coach Stokes directed the front row players to keep an eye on “Number 11”.

The Starlings caught the Green Volleyball Club off guard in the first game. Solid play all around by the Starlings, featuring a key kill by Michaela and kills by Brooke and Allie lead to a comfortable 25-14

The second game was back and forth all the way. Green Volleyball came out with particular intensity, and caught the Starlings cruising. The 7 total service errors and 4 aces against made the game too close for comfort and the lining of Coach Stenger-Smith’s stomach, but key kills by Jazmine (who was also jump serving for the first time) and Allie, along with a Serving by Brook and Samantha gave the Starlings a 25-23 victory.

The 2 Match victories guaranteed that the starlings would at worst remain in Division 13. Coach Stokes, however, wanted the girls to have another shot at Division 12. Although the Starlings lost all 3 Matches in Division 12, all but one game was lost by fewer than 3 points.

A complicating factor was that Antelope Valley had recovered from the loss to the Starlings and Green VBC and Temecula in a 2 and 3 games respectively, meaning that the Starlings pretty much had to win against Temecula to win the bracket.

Game 1 was very exciting and featured 3 aces and 2 kills by Brooke solid serving by Samantha, and some solid Defensive play by Michaela. Also very exciting was a diving save by Jazmine, allowing the Starlings to return the ball and eventually win the point. The 5 service errors gave Temecula too many chances, but the Starlings won 26-24.

Game 2 showed what wonderful chemistry these Starlings girls have. With the score 12 to 9 Starlings, Temecula was threatening with a hot server. After a key time out by Coach Stokes, Temecula committed a rare service error to give the serve back to the Starlings. A few plays later, Jazmine “Tough as Nails” Stenger-Smith, was fighting back tears from a very painful ankle injury. Coach Stokes called for a time out to give Jazmine a rest and to stress the importance of staying on the court (if Jazmine had left the Starlings would forfeit the Match). Some minor adjustments were made to cover for Jazmine’s limited mobility. It was then that Grace rose to the challenge and served 11 serves in a row for points, giving the Starlings a comfortable 21 to 12 lead. Temecula again threatened with a hot server, but the Starlings battled and won 25 to 18.

Service errors still continue to haunt the Starlings, as the other 3 teams rarely committed more than 3 service errors per match. And now The Starlings Return to Division 12 for Mandatory 5.

Our 13s team played in the the 14s Mandatory 2 Tournament this last Sunday at Artesia High School.

The day started out as it usually does for the Starlings: meeting at 4:30 am in the old Von’s Parking lot. 2 Families forgot the ‘Spring ahead’ time change. Thanks to the fact that we were the second seed in the bracket, which meant we had to referee the first game, we were all able to get to the venue in time to play. The venue itself was not the greatest, both for viewing and for moving on an off the court.

The first complication to the day was the ‘no show’ by the fourth seed. The remaining coaches agreed to a ‘3 games to 25’ format, which meant the first two teams had to come back onto the court and play another game, and that the Starlings had to play 6 games in row without a break.

The long ride and the lack of warm up time and space reared its head in the first game. The team lost the game 23-25 due mostly to the 7 service errors.

The second game started out fairly even, then Jazmine Stenger-Smith strung together a solid run of 8 serves with 6 aces to have the Starlings pull ahead by a comfortable margin. A key kill by Hitter Michaela Metcalf halted a comeback attempt by the other team and the Starlings went on to win 25-14.

The third game featured great service runs by Brooke Nelepovitz and Allie Sliva with 8 serves and 5 aces and 6 serves and 4 aces respectively. Solid Serving by Becca Stoffel and solid defense by libero Grace Tesdale rounded out this match’s victory.

The fourth game featured generally solid play by the starlings. Jazmine lead the offensive charge with 9 serves 3 aces and 2 kills. Grace and Becca made solid defensive plays throughout. Hannah Farmer made a key pass to keep a long rally going and gave the Starlings a critical point. The Starlings won by 25 to 23 with the 5 missed serves making the game a bit too close for Coach Stokes’ comfort

The fifth game was fairly even until the end. Lead by Brooke’s 5 kills, the Starlings held on until the end, but ended up losing 20 to 25.

The sixth game was the most exciting of them all. If the Starlings won this game, it meant a move up to a higher bracket. There was solid play all around with great defensive plays and only one service error. Key kills by Allie, Michaela and Becca kept the game within Starling’s favor. With injured player Sara Cordes providing moral support, the Starlings battled neck and neck with the other team. With the score tied at 23, Maddy Perez was serving for the first time in a tournament. Maddy showed no effect of the pressure, and got both of her serves over the net and the other team was unable to return either. The Starlings won 25 to 23.

Our 16s team played Mandatory 1 on Sunday March 1st at the American Sports Center in Anaheim CA.

Our Ridgecrest Starlings 16s started our weekend with a team building event at Disney’s CA Adventure where nine of the ten players enjoyed the day riding thrill rides.

But Sunday was a volleyball day.

Our first match was against a team from the Roots VBC - the number 4 seeded team. This team was tall and intimidating looking and no one in our pool had gotten a chance to see them play or warm up. They showed up on the court about 5 minutes before match one ended. They came out hot and were really pouring it on us. At one point they were up 19-4. But that was mostly because we were not playing well. Late in the game our back row started passing better and we got some kills in and we closed to a not quite as embarassing 16-25 loss. The little boost at the end coupled with a let down from our opponents who started playing like they thought we were going to be an easy win, led us to a 25-18 victory in the second game. This victory was sparked by Amanda and Mandy serving and Sarah and Haley hitting. Haley’s hitting had her coaches chuckling on the sidelines. Every set she got that was a good set that she could take a good proper approach and swing at - she missed. While every side-arm, backwards, over the head, totally unrealistic swing she took at a ball - scored a kill. It was backwards. It was improbable. It was not how a coach wants to see players playing. But it was entertaining, and in this case, also effective. The third game wasn’t even close. I think our opponents were shell shocked. We won that game from the service line. We did not score a single kill in game three. Sammi ran up a 6-0 lead serving. They got two pts off serving errors then Mandy pounded several aces down their throats. After we let them have a couple sloppy points Laura’s serving finished them off. We won that game 15-5.

Our second match was against a team from the Rebels VBC. Our first game against the Rebels was a marathon. Fueled by Amanda serving and hitting out of the back row, Sammi’s serving, Mandy’s serving and Sarah’s pounding them from the outside we finally won 31-29. The overtime portion of the game was truly a team effort. From 25-25 until the end of the game every single player on the court made at least one game saving play to keep her team in that game. The second game our opponents seemed a little tired from the first game while our team was pumped up and ready to roll. W stormed out hot, ran up a 24-16 lead but then emotionally and mentally shut down let the Rebels run the score up to 25-22 before we finally managed to end it. Highlights of the second game were Mandy’s and Alex’s serving and again Sarah’s outside hitting.

Between matches two and three we had scorekeeping duty. However most of the team missed that match in shifts while they all snuck out for a chance to meet Kerri Walsh.

Match 3 was against the so far 0-2, number one seeded, San Gabriel Starlings. Unfortunately the team that we had seen play all day didn’t show up for this match, on either side of the court. San Gabriel was desperate not to finish 0-3 and our girls were complacent. In the first game our hitting fell apart when we could not get an attack over the net, commiting 10 hitting errors in that game. The main offensive load in this game was carried by Lindsey in the middle who for all her efforts was not able to avoid an 18-25 loss. In the second game our opponents were playing better and once again we started slow. But when Alex rotated around to serve she started just pounding serves over the net. Eight serves later, not one of them passed back up to our opponents setterand we had closed the gap and and taken a close lead. Our hitters were still struggling but but the team was playing again and we cruised to a 25-16 win. Unfortunately all that enthusiasm didn’t carry over to game three. Our Starlings opponents had us down 2-7 but we managed to take an 8-7 lead at the side change. But that rally turned out to be a last hurrah for our team. Everyone slowed down and we lost the game 11-15.

This put us in a two way tie at 2-1 with the Rebels, but we won the head to head tie breaker. So in spite of our lackluster third match performance we still went home in first place.

All in all, it was a great day. The team had fun on Saturday. They got to meet a superstar in their sport on Sunday. They played several really good games and went home with a first place finish. Something this team badly needed.

The down side of the day - I had to pay off my standing bet I have with teams I coach - you take first place and I buy the ice cream. Sure they picked McDonalds McFlurries but it was first place ice cream and tasted great!

Sunday Feb 8th our 14s team played in Qualifier No. 3 at Gahr High School in Cerritos CA. The team was looking forward to having our two injured players, Alyssa and Candace, that we had been without for the previous tournament. However we were still down one player, Joanna, who was home with strep throat.

We started off our first match of the day against a team from the Channel Islands Volleyball Club. The first game the team suffered from a bit of car-lag, or whatever you want to call the malaise that seems to settle on our girls who ride 2-3 hours to get to the tournement and don’t quite get adequately warmed up before the game starts. We let our opponents build a good lead but then started making a comeback. Unfortunately our comeback stalled out a little early and we lost that game 21-25. The second game was a lot more to mine, and the girls, liking. Everything was clicking for us - one serving error, no hitting errors, we were passing well and our offense was really working. We won the second game 25-10. Our third game we were staying even with our opponents until the side change but suddenly we lost our ability to receive serve and the game slipped away from us 9-15.

Since we were the third seed in our pool we had the second match off and then had to referee the third match. Our refereeing chores went by without indecent. Unfortunately we were not able to say that about the refereeing in our second and third matches.

Our second match was against a team from the San Diego Volleyball Club. Our first game was not a thing of beauty. Both teams struggled to put together a good offensive performance. But the difference was our defense. Allie and Samantha in the back row were making plays that our opponents just could not match. We won the first game 25-19. In the second game we had a lot of trouble with the referee who started making some rather inconsistent calls. Unfortunately our players were worrying more about the calls than they were the game and this one started slipping away from us. We were down 18-23 when our team woke up and really started to play volleyball. It was like watching game 2 of our first match all over again. Before the San Diego team figured out what was happening to them we had won the game and the match 25-23.

Our next match was against a team from the Stealth Volleyball Club who was looking for their first win of the day. Unfortunately our girls had seen this team lose two matches and were thinking that this was going to be an easy match. Our complacency coupled with their drive to win a match allowed them to run up a lead in the first game. But we managed to put together another come from behind victory 26-24. This overtime victory let a little wind out of our opponents and while we still were not playing our best volleyball we won the second game 25-18.

This put or team at 2-1 for the day and a second place finish. This should put our team into division 10 for the start of the mandatory tournaments in two weeks in San Diego.

I got a special treat this weekend.  I got the opportunity to coach the 16s team at their Qualifier 2 Tournament.

Our 16s team was playing as a number 4 seed at Rolling Hills Prep in Torrance, CA.  Our first match of the day was against the number 2 seed Ventura West team.  We started out the day a little slow in our ability to receive serve.  Ventura had a couple strong servers and they followed them to a 16-25 victory.  In the second match ou 16s team went on a few serving runs of their own.  Behind mini-service runs by Maggie, Amanda and Sarah our Starlings won the second game 25-18.  The third game unfortunately was a repeat of the first game and we lost the game and the match 10-15.

Our second match was against a team from Kern River Volleyball Club.  This team was fast - really fast.  Their volleyball skills were not that much better than our girls but they were, as a team, significantly faster.  Their overall team speed kept our girls running and diving all over the court trying to keep up.  In the end we lost the match 14-25 and 17-25.

Our third match of the day was against a team from the Valley Center Jags.  Our previous opponents had been fast,  this team was even faster, and taller.  Our team was facing offensive plays they hadn’t run into before.  The Jags hit alot out of the middle, they also loved running slides, quicks and pipes.  And while they didn’t always run them well, they did it all very quickly.

At one point I called a time out and almost every girl showed up in the huddle smiling, even though we were getting creamed.  Maggie looked at me as said “I’m having a blast, even if we are getting killed.”  That was kind of the tone for the match.  We lost, we lost badly but the players were having a good time.  Well, at least as good a time as you can have losing.  The results of that match was 10-25 and 13-25.

This loss will drop this team into the bronze group for Qual 3 in two weeks were they will play for a start in in divisions 9-12.

On a personal note, I loved the chance to coach this team.  I just wish they would have had a better outing.  I have really missed having several of these players on my team this year.  I felt good to stand on the sidelines and watch them play again.

Thank you ladies of all your hard work and your enthusiasm this weekend.  I had fun and I hope you all did also.

Last Sunday was Qualifier 2 for our 14s team.  We arrived at this tournament missing two players.  Since there were only 7 players on our team the lineup was pretty simple - six players play all the way around except when the libero replaced them in the number five spot on the court.

We didn’t have a good day.  To start we were running late.  By the time the players were changed and ready to start warming up it was 10 minutes before start time.  But when the ref spotted us, our opponents and the scorekeepers she started out match early.  So we got no warmups.  Just the four minutes we would normally get before a match.  So we started out match, a little stiff and slow after a 2.5 hour car ride.

We spent most of the match either out of rotation, or thinking we were out of rotation.  This confusion resulted in the players paying more attention to our rotation than to playing volleyball.  We lost the match in two straight games 13-25 and 8-25.

The next two matches we were off and then had to officiate.  We started out next match playing a lot better.  But still not good enough.  We managed to keep the rotations straight and were working our offense a lot better than the first match.  But again we lost in two games 13-15 and 21-25.

Our last match of the day immediately followed our second one.  The players decided to change jerseys before this match.  I don’t know why, they are 13/14 year old girls.  Last tournament they watched a team change jerseys in the middle of the tournament and I guess they wanted to try it themselves.  But this did result in a little comedy on the sidelines.  Most of the girls who had been complaining that it was warm in the building and they were hot.  Then we discover that they are all wearing tee shirts under their jerseys.  While this did make changing jerseys easier for them it may have been adding to their hot problems.  However two of the girls were not wearing a second shirt and when facing the prospect of changing shirts in front of a gym full of spectators they balked.  Which is a good thing.  I have never been comfortable around players who are willing to strip down to a sports bra and swap jerseys where ever they may be standing.  I realize that for many of these girls their sports bras actually cover more than their swim suits cover, but that still doesn’t mean I want to see them parading around without their jerseys on.

So eventually several players grabbed their sweatshirts and made a makeshift changing room for their teammates to swap jerseys in.

The jersey change didn’t change or fortunes in the third match.  We played much better and there was a lot of good things happening on the court.  Emma was doing everything right - setting, hitting and serving.  Unfortunately for her she also made a serving error with our game tied at 24 points, then a hitting error to end the game in our opponents favor 24-26.  Blaming herself for the loss she pretty much forgot everything else good she had done in the game.  But she is a competitor and came right back in the next game.  Our last game of the day ended 21-25 for our third match loss of the day.

Last year my team had an 0-3, 0-6 day also.  It was a very ugly day.  I spent three days afterwards trying to find somthing positive to tell the girls after that day.  This year was a lot different.  I saw a lot of good things out there that day.  Ever single player made plays that they could be proud of.  We played some good games, just not good enough.  Also we played our third opponent, who won our pool closer and harder than anyone else in the pool played them.

This was a good day with a bad result.  I think the girls learned some things about themselves and about thier team.  This was not a day that we have to recover from.  It was a day to build on.

My 14s team traveled to the American Sports Center on Sunday Jan 11 for this season’s first SCVA tournament.

We were originally slated to play at Rolling Hills Prep and we were ranked as the second highest seeded team in the Copper group.  This meant that we would have been playing against teams that would have been preseason ranked lower than us.  Then they moved us up a couple spots in the rankings and suddenly we were ranked as the third lowest team in the Bronze group and will be playing against teams that are all ranked a head of us.

Our first match of the day was against another 14s team from the Elite Volleyball Club. This team seemed to have a lot of younger players on it. In fact they looked a lot like the mix of players that I had on my 14s team last year. They turned out to be a good starter game for us. Fortunately my team was not awed by the American Sports Center with the 22 volleyball games that were going on simultaneously. They got a little confused with the rotations and substitutions. But worked through it and won the match 25-15 and 25-16.

Our second match was against the number one seeded team in our pool, a team from the California Heat Volleyball Club. We played them close in the first game but pulled away in the end and won 25-21. However in the second game the team seemed to relax a bit too much and they got a little complacent. We lost that game 20-25. The third game of the match was more of the same. We were down 3-8 at the side change and eventually lost the game and the match 8-15.

Our tird and final match of the day was against a 13s team from the TCA volleyball club. This was definately a younger smaller team and Alyssa and Ashley physically overwhelmed them with their serves and spiking. We won that match 25-5 and 25-15. Near the end of the second game our team started relaxing again and gave up several garbage points - something we will be working on in practice the next few weeks.

After taking our turn scorekeeping we loaded up and headed for home. Several of the players and their parents all stopped at the Brea Mall, for dinner at the food court. It was nice to see the girls all sitting together eating. It also gave me a chance to visit with some of the parents - something we we don’t get to do very often.

Highlights for the day were long service runs by Alyssa, Ashley, Emma and Samantha. We got good defensive and offensive performances from everyone on the team. Allie who is still settling into the libero position made several great defensive stops and chased down several mishit balls that I didn’t think she was going to get to.

As a team we turned in an 84.6 serving percentage with a 40.1 ace percentage. Top serving percentages of the day were Alyssa - 94.55, Samantha - 91.7% and Ashley - 90.5%. Every player on the team who got more than one attempt to serve turned in more than 10 serves, and they all recorded more aces than errors.

Team hitting was only a 13.1 percent. Our biggest problem hitting was that we didn’t do it enough, only recording 61 attacks in 7 games. This is something else we will be working on in practice. Top attackers for the day were: Alyssa - 40%, Rebecca - 33% and Candace - 28.6%.

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.