But for a point here or there....

One thing I keep discussing with Maddie is how important every single point is during tournaments.

A few things that jumped out after ECC:

Look at the scores of our Sunday losses: To Apollo 22-25, 25-27
                                                              To Clackamas 25-27, 22-25

A few more digs, a few serves not out of bounds or into the net....a point early in the match or when it's 19-19...can make all the difference in the world between playing for a championship and playing for 11th place. Winning just one of those matches, to teams ranked lower than we were, and we would have been playing in Gold. Speaking of Gold...the 16 Club Championship was won by Clark County Black which they won over NW Juniors Elite Black. Interesting fact: Clark County lost one match all weekend. They lost 0-2 to ITVC Blue on Saturday. We didn't play NW Juniors this weekend, but at Regionals, we beat them in a match AND in the Bronze Championship playoff game.

So there, in a nutshell was the frustrating thing about the season....always close, but never able to win that key game to move us into a position to succeed on a bigger stage. As Maddie moves forward in her career, she needs to learn to help her team find those extra points each game. Her coaches need to motivate and explain the significance of every match. And each girl needs to dig deep and avoid those one or or two mistakes that may seem insignificant at the time, but can change a season around.

Images of ECC

Emerald City Classic - Days 2 and 3

The volleyball Gods giveth and they taketh away. Day 2 began with the news that our starting DS would be gone the rest of the tourney due to a family emergency. That coupled with the absence of another girl due to sickness turned out to be critical as the club does not have much depth. The decrease in defense and a reversion back to the days where we made 4-6 service errors per game, was too much to handle in matches 1 and 2 and we lost all 4 games by 3 points or less. Nontheless, a victory over Cascade Blue left us at 1-2 and a chance to actually come in second in the pool because of tie breakers, but the team we needed to win the last match did not, and we finished third and thus ended up in the Silver Division. Disappointing after playing so well on day one.

Monday found us actually seeded at the top of the Silver Division and we won the first match pretty handily. Playing in the next match against High Velocity, we dropped the first game but came back to win the second. Game 3 went back and forth, but after 10-10, we fell apart and ended up losing the game 15-10, thus ending both the tournament and the season. Part of me feels kind of disappointed because we could have done so much more, but the weaknesses on the team were pretty consistent all year and the tourney was kind of a microcosm of the year. A good team, but never quite able to make that leap into consistent excellence. Still, 13th out of 40 teams is nothing to sneeze at. Maddie was a little off today, but had a solid tournament and I was especially proud of her 100% serving percentage. No one else on the team was even close to that (and it hurt).

A special shout out to the folks at WVBA who hosted a wonderful tournament. This was our first trip to the Emerald City Classic and everything was set up nicely and ran smoothly. I hope your girls have a great time in Brazil. So, congrats to Maddie, 16 Blue and all of the ITVC clubs who gave it their all this weekend. A season wrap up to follow soon. Happy Memorial Day!

Emerald City Classic - Day 1

Maybe we should have practiced at the beach all year. Or maybe all tournaments should begin at 3 pm. Whatever the reason, the girls came out and played some of their best volleyball of the year, taking out two higher seeds from Oregon and an outmatched Wahine team from Des Monies, WA in 6 straight games. The serving was solid, the defense and passing worked, Maddie's sets were spot on, and our hitters were nailing it...all which puts us in a nice spot on Sunday as the top seed in our pool where we will once again battle a couple of Oregon teams and the Cascade Blue team from Seattle. As it is now 11:40 PM and exhausted from the good play by Blue and the 12th inning victory by the Mariners over the hated Yankees, I will now retire and get ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

ITVC at the Beach

The last practice of the 2011 Club Season was held at Alki Beach on a pleasant evening yesterday as the girls prepare to wrap up the season with the Emerald City Classic this Memorial Day weekend. As it's supposed to rain, again, inside at the UW seems like as good as place as any to be. The practice was spirited and fun and  I think it loosened things up a bit. I'm hoping that if the girls have fun again, it may translate into good teamwork and effort. More over the weekend!

College Volleyball Personal Coaching

Hooked Maddie up with a super young lady at Nevillizms who spent an hour working on setting techniques, serving, defense, etc. Maddie came away fired up and immediately wrote down all the knowledge that was transferred so she could work on things prior to ECC. Taking a Sunday off practice *but not the last practice before a tourney!) to head to LA for some R&R. Good Friday the 13th!

Club Volleyball: Oregon Wrap Up

I had high hopes going into the Willamette Classic this weekend in Corvallis, but the girls never really got it going. I was pretty hopeful after last week's comeback at Regionals that we would be competitive, but some truly mystifying coaching decisions and a general lack of chemistry resulted in a pretty flat effort.
From a non-volleyball perspective, I liked everything about this tournament; facilities were nice, things were on time and they even had a spring match between Western and OSU. Maddie was excited for the team to see some college ball, but the rest of the team wanted to get frozen yogurt after the last match so Maddie and her mom  went solo. Good job, Maddie and good job, mom.

I think everyone is hitting the wall, but I hope we keep it together for ECC in 2 weeks. Even Club Volleyball Dad is wearing out, but I'm sure I will miss it when it wraps up over Memorial Day. Great to see all the other ITVC teams down there this weekend as well!

Core Values....err....Corvallis

Too much money for a 2 day touney 5 hours away. Especially after the bill for Minnesota just arrived!
Girls have not been playing well.
Supposed to be rainy.

All things I used to try and convince myself not to go...but then they looked like a team again at Regionals.
And I'm carpooling with another CVD.

And so....5 AM lift off for a 10:30 start in Corvallis! Life's too short, right?

Oregon or Bust!

Puget Sound Regionals

Let me first set the stage: at the end of the Power League season, the 64 teams are broken into 3 divisions. ITVC Blue is in Division 2, one of 24 teams. The first day is pool play with the top 2 teams from each pool of 4 advancing to the Gold and Silver brackets and the bottom 2 playing in the Bronze and Copper brackets. Sadly, IT plays well, but finishes 3rd in their first pool and is thus, on Day 2, one of 12 teams playing for Bronze. So out of 24 teams that begin on Saturday, IT is playing to finish between 13th and 24th. So that being settled, we begin our day and win 2 straight matches to secure a spot in the Bronze division. We win another match and are in the top 4. Next match begins (loser goes home) and the girls just look physically beat. We lost the first game and I'm thinking that the streak is going to come to an end. In the 2nd game, we continue to look pretty sluggish until coach calls a timeout and lays into the girls pretty good. It does the trick and we come out and take game 2 and dominate game 3, 15-7. That puts us in the final against NW Juniors Elite from Edmonds, a team which we had beaten earlier in the day. Game 1 sees us rally back from a deficit to take it, but the wheels come off the bus a bit and we drop game 2...so it all comes down to a game 3. It's back and forth but we're up 13-11 and Maddie is serving. Good serve, we handle their volley and push it over for a point. Game point. Maddie takes a breath and lofts a deep serve that looks long. The other team lets it fall, and fall it does, right inside the back line for the ACE and the win! So when it's all over, ITVC finishes 13th out of 24 teams and does it by going undefeated on Sunday.

On the drive back to Kirkland I realized how important that very first round of pool play is. You finish top 2 in your flight and you are playing for a top 12 finish no matter what...but at the end of the day I think today was more satisfying to be right where we were. I cannot express how proud I was of the girls who, in effect, won a 12 team tournament today. The defense was better, which meant the passes were easier for Maddie to set which meant the hitters were in good spots to kill the ball. And everyone stepped it up. We've struggled a bit over the last few tournaments and to see them come out today and go undefeated was like a breath of fresh air. Maddie played every point in 13 games over 8 hours and capped it off with an ace. Club Volleyball Dad is very proud, and I hope the girls can use this as a springboard to play well in Corvallis next weekend and at ECC over Memorial Day. Here's to you, #11 and to your 10 teammates. Well done.