Rough Riders

Yesterday we played in a 1-day tournament at LACC. On our division (BB), there were 7 teams and at least 4 of them were good competition, any team could have won. We were lucky on our draw and we ended up playing the two weakest teams in the first and second rounds. The team started slow and we didn’t overpower them as I wish we had. We won the games playing only the necessary to beat them. It is alright. In the beginning we were still warming up… But deep inside we all knew that in order to win the following matches we would have to step up our game. All we needed was to play more relaxed and have more fun – more intensity… Just like we have been doing on practices.
I had a feeling once we had a more challenging team we would bring it, and that is what happened. We played ‘Mystique’ and they crushed us in the first game. We had 4 ‘out of position’ calls and that means four points with no effort to the other team. We came together in the second game, playing faster, defending more (Tom had amazing defense) and the most important, vibrating on each point. We were able to win the second game and kept chances to go to the finals, BUT we still had one more match to go – ‘Riftide’. We came very determined to that match and put on practice what we have been doing in the training, dominating both games. I got happy with the overall performance. In the end of the day we had played well and most important, growing up in the competition throughout the day. All we could do was wait for other teams records. So we took second place in the pool play and were gonna play the final match against ‘Get a room’. We were all cold after waiting for a couple of matches to end. ‘Get a room’ came to the first game very HOT, playing fast, using our high blocks and dinking in the right spots. They were impossible. We were lost in the court, with no vibration…
They killed us 21 – 13 (or something like). When it seemed like we would have to be happy with second place medal, once more we brought our game and closed the second game on a tight 23 x 21.
The third and deciding game started very scrappy for both teams and went like that all the way to the end. We WON! I could hardly believe it! ‘Get a room’ played very well and still we had some bad calls against us but we managed to keep focus and pull through. It was fun. As a team we still have some space to grow and play better, be more accurate and precise, cover more and straight up some details till Nationals, on Memorial Day weekend… I can’t wait…