16s “play up” to the 17U competition in Kingston(PHOTOS) By Kelsey Wolfenden and Yazzie Dawoodjee, with photos by Lianne Normand
December 13, 2008 — Another early morning car ride took us to Kingston for the OVA 17U Girls Provincial Cup. The day started off against the Maverick Gamblers. Our set got off to a slow start. We seemed to be a little ‘tentative’, but with a few strong words from both coaches, we turned it around, taking the match in two sets. Great jobs girls for our first match with no missed serves!
On to our 2nd match against Pegasus 17U. We came out stronger, not being so hesitant, and had some great serving and passing. This match was full of scramble plays but we kept our cool and took the match in straight sets.
Our last match before being re-pooled was against Phoenix Orange. We started off on fire, managing to gain a huge lead. Unfortunately we lost some momentum with a few too many service errors, but luckily we came back and won the first set. In our 2nd set, Phoenix came out strong! It was a close set and we pulled off the victory, 27-25.
RE-POOL! 3-0. We finished 1st place in our pool. Our next two opponents were going to be the Maverick Black Jacks and Durham Attack Black, both 17U teams. This was our first big test, playing against two very strong teams. Our first game was against Maverick Black Jacks. We came out strong and with a high energy level. We were blocking, hitting and digging up everything! After a long and hard set, we lost 21-25. We lost some momentum going into the 2nd set and lost again 15-25.
Our last match of the day was against Durham Attack Black. Again, we came out firing in the 1st set. We had some great hits from everyone (Emilie, running a quick and smashing the ball off the setters head!). We came so close but lost 21-25. In the 2nd set, we came out strong once again controlling this game. That lasted until Durham got on a run and we couldn’t catch up. We fell in the 2nd set, 16-25. Our big accomplishment was staying in the lead for the beginning of both sets!
Overall we played some fantastic volleyball, especially in our last two matches. We executed what the coaches asked us to do (Devon helping us play a ‘game inside a game’) and we improved our game play. Great job girls on all the hard work – now stay in shape for our January 10th tournament (shovel)!
Thanks to coaches Linden and Devon for all their hard work!
