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!
