12UA Wins Premier League Gold

For those that have ever lived near train tracks, you know the feeling when a train is getting near. The tracks start to quake and the pressure and strength of the fast-moving locomotive is palpable in the air.

The H2 12 Under Armour team was giving off the feeling of a steaming locomotive over the past couple weeks. Strong practices, extra attentiveness, and incremental improvements in each player led to some great optimism about the Premier League finals.

First up was a Premier League tune-up as the girls played in a 13s tournament at Gametime Sports in St. Peters. The higher net and heavier ball didn’t deter the girls as they went 2-2 against the older competition, losing a close match in the gold semifinals. The coaches were able to point out that no player that H2 would face in the Premier League was as good as some of the tall (left-handed) middles that were faced on Saturday.

Encouraging words and hints of eating well and getting a good night’s rest where passed to the girls as the first match on Sunday was going to be a reffing duty at 8 am.

Little did the girls know that the parents were going to be preparing for the finals as well, making signs and large, ‘H’ ‘2’, colored cutouts.

A pleasantly warm and sunny day greeted the girls upon their arrival at Missouri Baptist for the three team finals. The first match was between the top seed TESL Red team and the third seed St. Charles Stars, familiar foes from the past two years. The Stars came out serving, passing, and mostly crushing the ball all around the court and easily dispatched TESL in two sets setting up a match of H2 vs. Stars.

A couple potential hurdles for the H2 girls. First, reffing the first match gives you little time for warm-ups as compared to the first match of the day. Secondly, you have to watch a team that looks pretty invincible.

The coaches changed the warm-up going into the weekend and the girls pulled it off very nicely, hurdle number one – cleared. As for being intimidated, the girls were having none of it.

In the first set, H2 scored five early points to jump out to a 9-4 lead only to see the Stars score four straight themselves to cut the lead to 10-9. Another run from H2 had the lead at 16-9 and it was starting to look good, especially at 20-12. Not so fast said the Stars, eight straight points and the set was tied at 20 with the Stars holding the momentum. A big kill by Anna got the serve back for H2 and Lexie G. took over from there, serving out with two aces and H2 won the first set 25-20.

The second set had much less back and forth drama toward the end of the set. No one scored more than a point or two at a time and the set was tied up at 12s. From that point on, H2 tightened their game up, smelling the chance to control their destiny for a gold medal. The H2 girls outscored the Stars 13-3 going away, the train was coming through.

The only thing that stood in the way of a gold medal was the TESL Red team that had defeated H2 previously in the year. The time-off revitalized TESL as the first set had H2 trailing 10-13 at one point. Remember the theme to the story – the freight train? The rest of the way the score was 15-3 in favor of H2 with aces and kills flying left and right.

Mathematically the girls had clinched first place but the coaches didn’t let them know that. They wanted the girls to finish the job. And finish the job they did. The outcome was never in doubt as the girls raced to an 11-4 lead and finished the job with a 25-13 victory going 4-0 on the day and winning the Premier League gold medal for the second year in a row.

After the final point, the girls briefly celebrated their accomplishments and then thanked their parents for their incredible support (and a fun trip to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate).