Volleyball Game 5

Last night was our fifth volleyball game. We had to play shorthanded. My daughter and one other player had told me in advance that they would not be there. Then one other player's father showed up just before out match was set to start to tell me that his daughter was ill and wouldn't be there. I really apreciated him making that trip. We would have played without his daughter regardless but it was nice of him to let us know.

So we lined up to start the match with our five players. We were very relieved to see that the opposing team also only had 5 players.

On top of the sort handed teams we also had to play the late game. Our match started at 7:45 PM. My team warmed up pretty well. They were moving and passing well when they were just passing a ball around before the match. But once the whistle blew they just fell asleep. Serving was off, movement was non existant and we only had one attempt at a spike. We lost the first game 25-18.

During the side change my girls seemed to wake up a bit. They were a little more lively. When the game started they looked like a totally different team. Serving was really on. They were passing and spiking. I have been telling a couple players that when they are in the front row they need to own the net. Meaning that nothing crosses that net that they don't control where and how it is traveling. They needed to stop sitting back and waiting and be on the offensive, even while playing defense. This game they did that. I had one normally quiet, pass everything player dinking and offspeed hitting every ball she got her hands on. My excitable, high energy players was all over everything that crossed that net. Any ball that got passed short over the net was slammed right back at them. It was beautiful!

We won the second game 25 - 19.

In keeping with our team tradition of losing coin tosses, we lost the toss for the serve in the third game. I told my players that they couldn't play a come from behind game this time since the game is only to 15 points. They actually listened. Well, at least is seemed that way. They won the point off the opening serve, then went on a scoring binge. We ran up a big lead before slacking off a bit and eventually winning the game 15-10. This gave us our third match win in 5 matches.

The girls were jumping around and yelling and celebrating. It was fun. They had lost a couple close matches this season so it was nice to see them pull off a win.