Watching My Sisters Play

            This weekend I got to watch both of my sister’s play, which is rare because usually we have tournaments on the same weekends. It was awesome to finally get to see my sisters play. While watching I realized a lot about how much younger players look up to older players and what younger girls are thinking about when they are playing or after they lose.

            On Saturday I was in Tiffin, Iowa watching my youngest sister, Mara play. Her team is 11U but they were playing in a 12u tournament. On our way there she said “I am so glad you can finally come and see me play.” This made me realize how much it means to her that I could go watch. She was telling me how excited she was, but nervous at the same time. I told her not to be worried, you have nothing to lose. During the first game, whenever her team would get a point she jumped up and down and gave everyone high fives and it was so cool to see how much she was enjoying it. Her team ended up getting 3^rd place which was really good considering they were playing an age division up. After they lost in the semis Mara was upset and I could tell how much she wanted to win that game. It was weird because I could totally understand what she was feeling because it has happened to me many times. It’s crazy how much potential she has and I can’t wait to see what her future holds.

            On Sunday I went to West Branch to watch my other sister, Claire play. Her team is 13u and they played in the top division of 13’s with probably the best teams in the state at that age. Claire is more like me when she plays, sort of quiet but pays attention to details and is always thinking ahead. She is a libero and I was very impressed with her ability to keep the ball alive, and how consistent she was with her serve receive passes. Her team got 1^st place and I was so proud of Claire. She has things to work on but she has improved so much already since the beginning of the season and I can’t wait to see what the upcoming years have in store for her.

            After Claire’s tournament was over my mom told me that one of Claire’s teammates mom came up to her and said that her daughter looked up to me and loved how I talked to Claire’s team and got to know them and gave them compliments. This was probably the best thing anyone has ever said to me. I have always looked up to college players, but I never thought someone would look up to me like that. It was just really humbling to hear that.

Word Count: 481

Volleyball Drills to try

Coming up with drills to do in practices is sometimes hard because they have to involve all positions, be productive, and be fun at the same time. Some of my favorite drills are Pra-ja, Columbia, George, Baseball, WIN, and Split Court. All of these drills are fun, productive, and everyone gets a lot of touches.

Pra-ja is a game I learned at HP this year. It is definitely my favorite drill because it involves a lot of quick thinking and communication between you and your partner. Pra-ja is a 2 on 2 game with 2 balls being played at the same time. You and your partner are allowed 3 touches on each ball like normal but you can let the ball bounce in between each contact. In order to get each ball in play one partner from each side will serve one ball to the player on the other side who is not serving. After each ball is in play you play normally but you can let the ball bounce once in between each contact. If one team wins both points they stay and the other team waves through, but if both teams win one point they are both off and two new teams come on. I like this drill because it tests how well you can communicate with your teammate and it trains you to look across the net to tell your partner where he/she should attack the ball to. A hint for this drill is to never tip short. Tipping in the drill is an easy pass for the other team because the short tip will bounce up directly to a player on the other side.

Columbia is another awesome drill. Columbia is run with 4-6 players on each side of the net. The scoring and rules of a normal game apply, the only thing that is different is that every player rotates when your team attacks the ball over the net. I like this drill because you get to experience playing every position. George is similar to Columbia with 4-6 players and regular rules/scoring applies, but if you make a mistake you are out and the next person in line on your team replaces you. I like this drill because it puts pressure on you to not make a mistake. Volleyball is a game of mistakes, every point is caused by a mistake. So everyone is going to make mistakes at some point in a game but it is the team who makes the least mistakes that will come out on top. When you are playing the game George it really makes you focus on the position you are playing because if you want to stay on the court you can’t make a mistake.

These are just some of my favorite drills I have played. I hope this helps if you are looking for fun drills for a practice :) 

Word Count: 487

Day 2 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Today our first match wasn't until 3 in the afternoon, so surprisingly we got to sleep in. For breakfast I went to a place called George Webb with a couple of my teammates. After that we watched Divergent and just hung out until we had to check out of the hotel and head to the convention center. Our first game was against Skyline, but it was postponed for a little bit because they were reffing a different game so we started playing Nukem, a game where you can catch the volleyball and take 1 step then throw it to the other side and try to score. When we started playing it other CIA teams asked if they could play and pretty soon there were around 30 girls (some of 12 Black, 16 Black, my team and 18 Black) playing. It was pretty awesome because a ton of people came to watch and asked where we were from and thought it was awesome that our club was so close to each other.

When skyline was done reffing our match started and we beat them in the first set easily. It was a little weird because 18 Black was reffing us and if we beat Skyline we were going to have to play them next. We ended up losing the second set and having to play a third. I don't know why but we are really good at third sets so I wasn't worried. We beat them easily in the third and now it was time for the real test, playing 18 Black the team that we practice with every practice and the team that we look up to. It was a little weird knowing that we would be playing them but I was excited for the challenge. In the first set we did not play well at all, I don't really know what it was but we just couldn't stop them from getting runs. So during the second set we knew we had to step it up and we definitely did. We were ahead until the last couple points, it was 24-23 and we were losing and they won on a bad call. That second set was one of the best games we have ever played so I was proud of my team.

After losing in the semi's to 18 Black we played another 18's team called Capital. They were a tough team but we should have beat them. I think we were still upset about losing to 18's and we just weren't really focused on winning that last game. We lost in 2 sets, both of the scores being close and ended up getting 4th out of 16 teams overall.

I think this weekend showed us what we have to continue working on and what we are doing well, but most importantly it showed us that we can compete with the open division teams and we are going to have to fight for every point in upcoming tournaments.

Word Count: 503

Day 1 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Tournament time is finally here and that means playing my favorite sport with my favorite people almost every weekend. This weekend was no exception and we competed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the open 17 and 18's division. We faced some pretty tough competition but overall it was a great weekend.

On Friday at 4 I left with my parents and headed to Milwaukee. 5 hours later we arrived at our hotel, which was connected to the convention center where we would be playing the next 2 days. The hotel was really nice and once we got there I unpacked and then hung out with some of teammates that were there. Some girls on my team had basketball games Friday night, so they didn't get to the hotel until 2 in the morning!

On Saturday we played at 9 so we had to be at the convention center at 7:30 to watch the teams that we would be playing compete. I was pumped to play. Our first match was against Wisconsin Juniors and we beat them in 2 sets. After that we played right away and beat New Wave in the third set. During the game against New Wave the Wisconsin head volleyball coach was standing at the end of our court. I was a little nervous, but I knew I just had to play like I always do and I wold be fine. Winning the third set of that match was awesome. We played West Power Bend in our last match of the day and beat them in 2 sets.

After we were done playing we headed back to the hotel and took ice baths, showered and changed to go watch 16 Black play. Once they won their match we headed back and then went out for dinner as a team. when we got back to the hotel we hung out until it was time for "CIA's Got Talent", It was a team bonding activity that consisted of mini competitions that each team competed in together. The first competition was who could make a paper airplane that flew the furthest, which 18 Black won. there were probably 10 competitions overall and after the last one my team was tied with the 18's. So the tie breaker was an individual dance off. We lost and we were pretty bad but it turns out we were going to get a chance at revenge against them the next day, on the court.

Word Count: 415

Importance of Setting Middles

            In the game volleyball it is very important to set your middles for a lot of reasons. It is also one of the hardest things to do. You need to set your middles to keep the blockers on the other side honest, leave your outside and right side 1 on 1 as much as possible, keep your opponents defense off balance, and allow your setter an open tip or attack.

            Keeping the other teams’ blockers honest means making sure they are staying with their hitter (Outside with outside, middle with middle and right side with right side). For example say that I never set my middles, the middle blocker would cheat to the outside or right side and would cause them to have a double block almost every time. This is why a setter needs to run a smart offense based on the blocks. If your left and right side are facing a double block every time they swing that probably means you need to run your middles more often or mix up the offense that you are running. This is why running a fast offense is very important, the faster I can deliver the ball to my hitters the less time the other teams’ blockers will have to get in the right position to block. So mixing up my sets often and running fast plays gives my hitters a better opportunity to get a kill.

            On the other hand running quick middle offense often is one of the hardest things to do as a setter. There are many factors that determine whether I can set my middle or not. The pass is most important. If the pass is more than 10 feet off the net it is very difficult to deliver the set the way it should be. If I’m that far off the middle will hopefully call a 31. I can set a 31 if I’m off but it takes a lot of practice to figure out how far off and how fast you can push the ball so that the middle will be able to get a good swing. The other factor that goes into setting my middle is the positioning of the blockers. If I see that the middle blocker is following my middle I will push it outside or back. If the middle blocker is cheating towards the outside I can set my middle and she will have either 1 or no blocks.

Word Count: 415

First Club Tournament

           My favorite time of the year is here, club season. That means long car rides, missing school Fridays and Mondays, ice baths, late nights, early mornings, and playing the sport you love with your best friends. This weekend was our first club tournament in Rochester, Minnesota. I was looking forward to this tournament for a long time so that I could finally play in a real match with my team. We have 4 new girls on our team this year so getting comfortable on the court and used to how they like their sets takes time, but this weekend definitely helped that a lot.

            We played 3 matches Saturday and 3 Sunday. On Saturday we played Milwaukee Sting 16’s, Northern Lights 16-1, and Fusion 17 Black. All 3 teams were very good competition. This tournament is more like a scrimmage because it doesn’t count on our record but we still kept score. We played for 50 minutes and usually got through 2 games to 25 and then a third to around 15. We did pretty well, I think our best game overall on Saturday was against Northern Lights. On Sunday we played Minnesota Select, SMV 18-1, and Crossfire 18-1. We played well, our second game was a little rough but we picked it up at the end and finished strong.

            Most importantly we figured out what we need to work on in practice, and what we did well. We need to work on serve receive, more consistent serves so we can get more runs of 3 or 4 points, different shots when the set is off the net, back row attacks, and being in the right places on defense. Personally I need to continue to work on being more of a leader, setting my middles in transition, my connection with each hitter, being stopped on defense, tipping deep in zone 5 with my left hand, not drifting on my block and a more aggressive serve.

            I think we did really well on playing as a team, never giving up, blocking, running fast plays and our hitters were aggressive and never afraid to swing. Overall I think it was a very successful tournament and we will learn from our mistakes and work on them in practice. I’m already looking forward to our next tournament in Milwaukee, WI. We are playing in the open division so it will be really good competition and experience playing in open before our qualifiers. 

Word Count: 412

Reffing and Scoring Online Clinics

            Everyone’s least favorite thing about volleyball season is having to go through the online reffing and scoring clinics. They take a long time and when you are 17 and have been playing volleyball since you were 10, it is mostly stuff I already know. But, this year they changed some things that made it go faster.

            The past couple of years you have had to go through every section and then take a test afterwards, if you didn't get a certain amount of questions right you had to retake it. This year before you have to go through each section they give you an option to take a pre quiz, and if you get at least 90% which is missing only 1 you get to skip that whole section. This is a really option until you miss 2 questions and realize that you now have to go through 25 minutes of listening to how to ref or score. This happened to me I think 3 out of the 8 sections, because some of the questions in the pre-test are about something that rarely happens in a game like a sanction. I mean I know that you need to know how to deal with those types of situation in a match, but they shouldn't put those in the pre-test. They should make a section of commonly missed concepts during reffing and scoring that is mandatory for each player to watch.

            After going through the online course I have a few tips. Take the pre-test and make sure you are 100% sure on your answer before you submit it. If you really have no idea what the answer is and you have already missed a question, look up online the subject that the question is asking about and try to find an answer. Make sure you read the section on the topic you are having trouble with so you understand what to do if you are faced with that situation in a game. Reading a couple of paragraphs is better than listening to a 25 min video of things you already know, trust me. Good luck with your online clinics, and hope your seasons are off to a good start!

Iowa Region Reffing and Scoring Clinic: http://www.iavbreg.org/index.php/clinics/referee/

Word Count: 375