We Achieved a New “Beginning”

What a day we had…Sunday. After being placed in a 3rd seating, we came very close to beating the #1 seed in the 2nd set… ahead by a 7 point margin, we lost 21-19. In the second match versus the #2 seed team, we split sets… However, against the #4 seed, unfortunately we could not find our true selves and ended up splitting sets to a team, in my opinion, was below our skill level ability. Pool Play results: 2 – 4

We placed in the Silver Bracket. My thoughts always are to get in Gold or win Silver. The only problem was that the team we met in the Silver Championship Match, after beating the 4th seeded team in two straight sets, was tall and had “seasoned” players. Seasoned players are those not new to club or competitive volleyball, they tend to play smart, and objectively attack balls with very little free ball action if possible.

 

In short, we won. We beat them in two straight sets and won the Silver medal, but by no means was that the highlight of the day. While I was excited to see our team fight back from “adversity” (remember my notes from last week?) and finally win after a month of tournaments, on my drive home I reflected on something totally different than being gratified with the Silver medal. During the second set of the championship match, I remember telling Mary my asst coach, they (our team) are now seeing the game wide range. What does this mean? The first thing in volleyball you must learn is reading and then “doing”. Once individuals learn to incorporate a fast combination of reading /doing it advances one’s ability to play at higher levels. When you can quickly read the actions of the opponent, provide the ability to react and attack with full force, whether that is serving, setting, digging, hitting, blocking…when you are playing a step before your opponent…that is advanced volleyball; that is what I am striving for consistently from our team. They showed it today in the Silver Championship match.

We achieved a new “beginning” of play; that is the ability to observe the “form of entity” (or simply put “the thing”) before it happens (reading), and taking the necessary action (doing), to make it all come together quickly.

We have a long way to go, but if we continue our path, we will…………………..you finish the statement!

Coach Warren