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!