Volleyball Has BEGUN!

 

New team, a new national level, a new club, and a new season of volleyball! Heidi was recruited to join Southwest on their 2nd National team. She jumped at the opportunity and is loving it! The coaches are wonderful and really give great feedback and guidance. I've seem them praise for correct play and coach her through mistakes or improvements. The team has a lot of potential. Seriously, they are on the cusp of greatness BUT there are some kinks that need to work out. Their defensive back row positions and rotations need some attention. I have faith in the coaches that they will continue to tweak and figure out the rotation. 

They played in a two-day tournament here in Cleveland and finished 10th overall. Their games were ALL so close but unfortunately, little mistakes made the game tip toward the other teams. Heidi truly enjoyed playing, she had some great saves, and her serving was on point. The coach even adjusted the rotation to get her more playing time. I think we are going to see some great volleyball this season! 

We have a couple of weeks off before we travel to Columbus Ohio for a big tournament there!

My pictures are not great. It is really hard to take good volleyball pictures without distracting them. 

As these tournaments can do, they were running about an hour behind schedule. It's because these teams were so closely matched and many games were very close. The girls played games to pass the time and even a mascot joined in!

The athlete walk...

Lucy was a good sport. She won't always come to all the tournaments and Chris and I do plan to divide and conquer some of them, but she enjoyed herself this weekend.

These tournaments are crazy - 50 courts in a big convention center! We got a little lucky and on the first 4 courts with some extra room. We had many friends, former teammates, and classmates at this event as well and some of those higher-numbered courts were tight! Add really tall people and tons of girls with giant backpacks - it was crazy to navigate!

The club did some pre-tournament play with the teams, which was a really smart idea. The girls could practice the rotation and the coach could determine if any changes are needed.

I'm going to try to stick a few random videos in here, but sometimes, they just don't have the quality come through...