I finally got pictures from Rebecca’s Middle School Promotion.

Since I’m late with them, I posted them here and added them to the promotion article.

What would graduation be without your friends showing up to cheer you on.

There was a professional photogragher at Nationals that was donating his time to take pictures of the event.  He posted them online.  This was the only one that showed any of our club.

Sunday morning found our 14s team facing an also undefeated team from Omaha Nebraska.  At first look these two teams seemed fairly well matched.  Both had some big hitters and fast defenders.  Overall they were both good solid teams of 13 and 14 year old volleyball players.  In the first game our Ridgecrest team had some control problems with their serving and a hard time settling into a hitting rhythm.  They lost this game 19-25.  They second game our Ridgecrest team struggled their way to a 21-25 loss and their first match loss of the week.

This loss put our 14s team immediately back on the court, in the losers bracket, to face the same Phoenix team from Saturday.  It was a different day but the same results - Ridgecrest won 25-20 and 25-14.
Our Ridgecrest Starlings 14s tournament ended an hour later when they had to play the team from Omaha one more time.  This time the emotions of the day and the long weekend finally caught up with our team and they lost this rematch 14-25 and 17-25.  This loss put our Ridgecrest Starlings 14s team in second place for the tournament.

Second place in the Starlings National Championships was a great finish of what had been a good season for our 14s team.

On Sunday our 13s team played a single match against a Navajo Starlings team from San Diego.  This was another pair of close games and another close loss for our 13s team.  This loss ended our 13s team National Championship.
The Ridgecrest Starlings 13s ended the weekend in 4th place in the Silver Division and a 10th place overall in the 14 and under division of the tournament.

On Saturday evening while most of our Starlings players were relaxing and getting ready for their matches on Sunday six of our players and all of our coaches were attending a high performance tryout at the Alliant Center.  We were allowed to send only two girls per team to this tryout.  Chris the 16s coach decided to send Sammi and Mandy,  I sent Ashley and Alyssa from the 14s team and Megan sent Brooke and Rebecca from the 13s team.

All our girls worked really hard.  The coaches had to work two as we were recruited to run most of the drills the girls were performing.

An unexpected treat was that they tryouts were evaluated by the USA Volleyball youth A1 team.  This is a team of the top 16 and 17 year old players in the country.  This gave our players the opportunity to see how some of the top players in the country practice and play.

Day Three was a day of looking forward for our teams.  The 13s were looking for a high silver division finish.  The 14s were looking to stay in the hunt for a gold medal finish.  The 16s were looking to continue their good play from day 2 and end their season on a high note - playing together and having fun as a team.

All three teams got what they were looking for.

The 13s started the day officiating a match between Apple Valley and the same South Bay team that our 14s had defeated the day before.  After South Bay won the match easily our very young 13s team took the court against a significantly older, larger and stronger team.  I didn’t get to see this match as I was coaching the 14s at the time.  But everyone tells me that it was the best two games of volleyball our 13s played all season.  Unfortunately they were not able to pull off a win, but they gave that South Bay team a scare.  Our 13s lost that match 23-25, 23-25.  They don’t get any closer than that.  They lost, but the 13s weekend is not over.  They play a team from Navajo/San Diego on Sunday morning for third place in the Silver Division and a 9th place overall finish in the tournament.

The 14s team also had to ref the opening match of the day against the Tehachapi team that had sent our 13s team into the Silver Division on Friday and a team from Phoenix AZ.  This game had a lot of history for our team.  Tehachapi had beaten our 13s, and last year a team from Phoenix had ended our 14s team run in the Nationals Tournament.  Phoenix won that first game.  My 14s were a little stiff from sitting and standing around scorekeeping and started a little slow.  But once they got woke up they started really playing the games just flew by.  We didn’t play our best volleyball this day, but it was good enough for a 25-18, 25-17 sweep and a place in the semi finals on Sunday where we will play a team from Omaha that, like us, has not lost a match in this tournament.

Our 16s had a long day they were playing at Balboa Park in the flight 2 bracket.  But they made the best of their opportunities beating two different teams from the San Gabriel Starlings and finally sweeping a team from the Scrips Ranch Starlings to finish 1st in their bracket and a 25th overall place in the tournament.  But more importantly, they played well, they played like a team, and they had fun doing it.

This is our 16s team shortly after their Friday comeback.

Sorry this will have to be quick - breakfast starts in 10 minutes and after two days of volleyball from early morning to late night I havn’t had much time to do anything else.

Day 1

Our 13s team really shocked some teams today.  They started out a second seed in their pool.  After blowing out a couple teams in the first two matches they ran into a bakerfield team in the third match.  After splitting the first two games they played a barn burner of a deciding game.  Exchanging points back and forth this third game to 15 was eventually tied up at 17-17.  That is when Maddy Perez, who just two weeks ago was struggling just to get her overhand serves to the net calmly walked back to the service line and fired an ace to give her team a 1 up advantage.  Then she fired another overhand serve that Bakersfield managed to return, which is when Maddy made a key dig to keep the ball alive, so Allie Sliva could put the game/match winning spike away.  The 13s went 3-0 for first place in their pool.

The 14s only had one hiccup in their day when their coach decided to try some experimenting late in the day.  After winning their first two matches easily and taking the first game of their third match their coach (thats me by the way) decided to give in their demands and let several players play different positions on the court than the ones I think they should be playing.  A late rally made the score not quite as scary as it had been most of the game but they still lost.  So we went back to what has been working for us to easily win the third game and end day one with a 3-0 first place finish in our opening pool.

The 16s make a tactical error on day one.  They had a late start (3 PM) so they filled in their morning by going to the beach.  There is a lot of hard feelings over this day and the way they played and I’m not going to go into things here because my opinion is not very popular amoung the parents, coaches and players right now.  But they showed up for their tournament, tired, sunburned and did not play well.  It was a late night but ended with a lot of crying players, frustrated parents and coaches.  They finished 4th in their pool.

Day 2

The 13s team was again the number two seed in their pool and they handled their first two matches with their usual fire and determination.  But near the end of match two Brooke, one of their two setters banged a knee very hard into the floor.  She tried playing in the third match but struggled.  So without her on the court her team played a tough Tehachapi team to a close loss.  This put them into a three way tie in their pool at 2-1 which they lost the points tiebreaker to Tehachapi.  So our 13s move onto today as the number two seed in the Silver divison of the tournament.

The 14s were all business all day.  After easily beating a team from San Diego and some old friends from the High Desert Team from Victorville.  We moved onto match three against South Bay.  South Bay has been ranked just above out team all season in the SCVA rankings and we knew this was going to be a tough match.  The first game went back and forth exchanging points all the way to 20-20, then we squeaked out a two point advantage and rode it all the way to a win.  In the second game, we gave South Bay an early 5 point lead and then started exchanging points again.  Somewhere around 16-12 however our team finally decided that I had not been lying to them all day when I incessantly nagged that they were the better team.  At the same time South Bay got just a little panicky and starting hitting balls out of bounds.  My excited, and hard playing girls steamrolled the rest of that game to a 25-19 victory, their second first place finish of the week and the number one seeding the the gold medal bracket for today.

The 16s really redeamed themselves on day two.  They showed up for their pool rested, relaxed and having fun.  They squeeked out a close first match win in three over a team from New York.  Then they won an easy match against a young Tehachapi team and ended the day with a 3 game win over a team from NW Kern.  They finished first in their pool.  While the championships of the tournament are not available to them, they really rebounded well from Thursday and everyone was glad to see them playing well and having fun again.

It must be time to go to Nationals. 

How can I tell?

Each year the landscaping in my front yard changes when it is time to go to Nationals.

Now I would never try and implicate MY team in such devious behavior.  But the culprit of this heinous act actually wrote their names on one of the signs. 

So we are off to Nationals today.  I will try and post updates if I have time.

This week ten Ridgecrest Starlings volleyball players left Middle School behind them and started on the road to High School:

Emma, Allie, Alyssa and Candace ready themselves to say good-bye to Murray Middle School

Emma

Allie

Alyssa

Candace

Emma Receiving the Delta Kappa Gamma Award

Colleen, Joanna and Savannah ready themselves to say good-bye to Monroe Middle School

Colleen

Joanna

Savannah

Savannah, the ASB President, leads off the ceremony with the Pledge of Allegiance

Colleen receiving an award for three years of perfect attendance:

Ashley and Samantha ready themselves to say good-bye to St. Ann Middle School

Ashley

Samantha

Ashley gives the opening address:

Samantha receiving the academic excellence award

Ashley receiving the Spirit of Saint Ann Award:

Last and certainly not least was Rebecca promoting from Immanual Christian Middle School.

What would graduation be without your friend showing up to cheer you on.