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.