Volleyball 10/5

Wednesday's volleyball matches got a little chaotic. Both teams were scheduled to play teams from Monroe Middle School at 3:45. Reluctantly my assistant coach was going to coach the 7th grade while I handled the 8th grade. Then on Monday the Monroe 8th grade coach asked if I would be willing to move our 7th grade game to 3:00 and still play the 8th grade game at 3:45. I agreed, this would give me the opportunity to coach each team.

As three of my players and I were gathered in the school parking lot and ready to head over to Monroe for the game the Monroe 7th grade coach came walking over to meet up. Apparently they had forgotten to tell his players about the schedule change and he didn't have a team for the 3:00 game.

So my team and I headed over to the gym and helped set the nets and bleachers. Then much to the disgust of my players we had a 40 minute practice before our simultaneous games.

The 8th grade game started out great. It was like my girls had suddenly turned into the team I kept seeing glimpses of for three years. They were moving well on the court, serving great, and passing like they were Ferrarris on the autoban. They were spiking, chasing down errant hits, calling balls, calling sets and working together. They ran up a fast 17-6 lead and then the lights went out.

Not literally, but that is what it felt like. I stood there is shock and watched all six players on the court just "turn off." They went absolutely flat...dead...comotose. It was like dying, standing there and watching them commit 11 service receive errors and 6 service errors in the next 5 minutes. They stopped passing, setting, serving, and moving. They just quit. All of them. Even the hyperactive, never stop talking or moving members of the team were just standing around. They lost the game 20-25. They were outscored 19-3 in what was possibly the longest five minutes of my life.

The second game was a bit better but still more like my same old 8th grade team than the team I saw in the first game. They were playing a bit better but still lost 21-25. We played a third practice game and we managed to squeek out a 16-14 win. But it was still a ugly game.

I didn't get any stats from the 7th grade game. But do know that they won both games. They were pretty close games. I looked over at one point and saw that they were leading the first game 21-20. I never saw a score for the second game. But after winning the match they played a practice game. They lost that one.