The Power League tournament was a bit of a let-down after our showing at Burlington.  We were shorted-handed over the course of the day, and we got off to a bad start with just seven players for our 8 am match against NW Jrs. Vortex.  But over the course of the day, with some late arrivals balancing out some early departures, we just managed to field a team in each of our matches.

The good thing was that a lot of our youngsters got to play, and they played a lot.  Taylor M. set for all ten of our games, and Jessica and Vanessa did good work sharing duties as a substitute setter in seven of our sets.  Our best team match of the tournament was our 11 am match with Space Needle Fuego.  With Alexis and Taylor setting, we won the first game 25-22.  But Alexis had to leave after the first set, and we were basically reorganizing in the second set, which we lost rather badly.  However, in the third and deciding set, with Taylor and Vanessa setting, Sarah and Jessica in middle, Tay and Erica outside, Yazmin as libero, and Ashton as our backup for middle and outside, we battled even with Fuego before finally falling 16-18.  In the afternoon, we gave Power Surge a battle in the second set, but lost 23-25 when three consecutive servers failed to get their first serve in.  This was due, no doubt, to fatigue.  We had been down to seven players since Noon, and the last game was played with just six.  We salvaged the day with a victory over South End Juniors (playing in the Mill Creek slot) in the final match.  The teams that will be going up to the next Division at the final Power League event are Vortex and Space Needle.  So we had the tougher pool.

See you all at practice on Tuesday!

We showed in our first match that we are capable of playing a high level of volleyball.  We could also see that we weren't as consistent as we need to be to play at this level.  We need to focus on several things at practice this week:

Take care of the little stuff ... make great passes on easy balls.  B^3.
Keep the ball in play ... give our opponents a chance to screw up.
Serve tough and in.
Cover our hitters.
Finish the volley when the opportunity presents.  We have some great hitters.
Be patient.

Finishing second in a U18 Silver division is a good result for us, but we could all see that a few small improvements would have made for an even better finish.  Make the commitment to learn your position and to anticipate.  We will be a great team when we get consistently good performances from all our players all the time.  Demonstrate at practice that we are ready to move on to the next level.