February 24th, 2007 - The OVA
14U Girls Bugarski Cup/Tier 2 was the first Toronto tournament for
the 14U team this year. After a very eventful evening of trying
to find the hotel in Brampton, we discovered that, even if you take
the right exit off the 401, you can still take the wrong fork in the
exit, and be thrown totally off course. We were about 8
kilometres away from the hotel ... 1 hour and 45 minutes later we
pulled into the Holiday Inn ... fit to be tied. Warren was only
lost for 10 minutes, as his sister was with him, and is familiar with
Toronto.
Saturday morning we were off to the gym (no
one got lost this time), to face Durham Attack Red. We
started off Tier 2 in style, winning the 1st set 25-21.
After changing sides we began the battle of the low hanging basketball
hoop, losing the 2nd set 23-25. Onto the 3rd (still
battling the basketball hoop), we were down 3-8 at the split, then
switched back to 'the good side', but the girls never got a chance
to gain any momentum, and we lost the set 7-15.
The 2nd match found us up against Forest
City Blue, with good serving and consistent passing, we won the
1st set 25-16, then we changed sides to begin the battle of the
basketball hoop, again, losing the 2nd set 13-25. The 3rd
set found the girls down 2-8 at the split, we switched to 'the good
side' again and had a great run of serves, only to lose 9-15.
There seemed to be a pattern forming here.
On to the playoff round against the
Halton Hurricanes Blue. This match started on the side with
the hoop, so maybe our luck would change! We started slowly,
losing the 1st set 16-25. We played better in the 2nd set,
winning 25-20, despite missing a few serves. Then the coin toss
... oh no, the other team won the toss and chose 'the good side'.
We were back with the hoop, and yet again we lost the 3rd set 6-15.
We were starting to feel more than a little bit jinxed by that darned
hoop.
So far, we had taken all 3 matches to 3
sets, showing that we can beat all the teams that we played, just a
little more consistency and a little more offense would have turned
the scores around.
For our last match of the day against
the North Bay Flurries, the girls started off slowly - down
13-19 - but, with some great serving and big hits, we came back to win
25-22, on the jinxed side! We won the 2nd set, 25-21, playing
consistently better than our opponent, and finishing the day strong,
on a winning note, as always!
We placed 9th for the tournament, securing
our spot in Tier 2 for Provincials in April. Way to go
girls!
Thanks to Linden and Mike for making the trip and supporting our
girls.
