Tournament and Practice (2/27-3/5) Extra Hitting Practices Pay-Off!

My team attended our second to last power league of the season in Cincinnati, OH. The weekend was definitely an eye opener for us. We had played and beaten two of the teams in our pool previously so we were expecting wins. Unfortunately, we may have been a little cocky. For all three of our Saturday games, we won the first game relatively easily but then lost the second. During the third games we would basically be neck and neck with the other team until about point 8, this is where we would get in a rut and not be able to get out of it for a few points. That led to us having to play catch up with the other teams, we ended up losing all three matches. Sunday was a similar story, although we did win one match. It is extremely strange to me that this happened three times in a row. This led to us practicing game situations, terminating the ball, and playing intense competition at our Tuesday practice. Hopefully this should help us put away a team when we know we can. We also worked hard on serve receive at our next practice.

On a more personal level, I saw my extra hitting practices for the last 2 weeks show some benefit. I played perhaps the best games of the season. I came out of the tournament feeling more confident in my hitting than I have ever been. I do have to say that I hit some balls really hard! My passing was not the greatest its been, but I didn't let it affect my attitude. I hope that I can continue to play this well consistently.

Our next tournament is the Bluegrass Pre Qualifier March 13/14 in Louisville. I look forward to seeing if my team's hard practicing is going to pay off.

Things I Learned This Week-Hitting

At practice on Tuesday my team worked specifically on fixing our hitting. Over the years, without the proper training, everyone has little things wrong with their swing or approach or something. For me, apparently, I have a "hitch" in my arm swing where I take my arm up but don't bring it all the way back, and I hesitate before I'm about to swing. By doing this, I am losing power and wasting time.

Because this was pointed out to me, I am working on making my arm swing one movement and improving my power in the process. I am very excited that we recognized this problem now because I can already see the improvement!

We are playing in Cincinnati this weekend in another Power League where we will continue to play some pretty good teams. I hope we can use what we learned in practice and translate it into the game situations.

I will write in my next blog how it goes.

President's Cup Tournament 2/13/10

Unfortunately, the number of Ls on my team's record for the weekend was greater than the number of Ws. However, it was fun to play open in a big tournament. We played more games than we were used to (we have only gone to power leagues so far). On Saturday we lost all of our games and ended up last in our pool :(We played many different levels of teams and it seems that whoever we play, we play down, or up, to their level.) My team can challenge high level teams but we also seem to lose to horrible teams who don't even deserve to be on the same court as us. We have discussed that we need to go into every game with the mentality that we can and will beat our opponent.
We need to keep the same energy level and winning attitude during every game. We can't go in thinking we are going to lose and we can't think that we are automatically going to win either. I know that my team has the potential to be great, we just need to focus on reaching that potential.

Sunday we won one match, finally, and moved onto the finals of Flight 2! I couldn't figure out any specific problem, but we ended up losing 15-13 in the third game, losing on a missed serve. All I can do is push myself and my team to play their hardest on each and every point.

The snow here in Lexington is pretty bad so school and practice were cancelled today. Our next tournament is a powerleague in Cincinatti where we hope to improve our rank from the last one.

Yours in Volleyball,
Kate

Practice-2/1/10

My team had a lot to work on this week after the tournament. My coach put special emphasis on movement and communication. We did lots of drills with switching and rotating with other players on the court. Also we worked on always staying behind the ball, even in out of system plays. So if the back row is setting the outside the ball then you have to start your approach further back. Patience was a big part of practice on Thursday. We were not allowed to move on to another drill until everybody had finished the first one in a row, without messing up. We had to encourage each other a lot to get everyone through the drill. I am looking forward to the President's Cup in Dayton next weekend, I think that we have the potential to do really well.

Power League - Louisville (January 30/31)

The second weekend of the Mideast Power League was not as rewarding as my team and I had hoped. We ended up going 1-4 in two days. We started slow Saturday morning with heavy feet and a low energy level. We worked ourselves up every game, improving, but falling short each time. Actually, on the first day we went to 3 games in every match and were up 8 to 6 in every one of them, and we just could not finish the game!

Overall on the weekend I thought we definitely improved from start to finish. I am working on having a more tenacious attitude on the court and leading my team more so we can pull out the close matches. I realize that my team really needs someone who can be counted on to put the ball away when we need a point, and I want to be that person.

FIRST TOURNAMENT - MIDEAST POWER LEAGUE

A Learning Experience
We had our first tournament this weekend and it was definitely a learning experience. We were in the first of a series of power leagues where we got to play 5 good teams. We started the weekend 3-0, winning our pool. Then we were reseeded and played two better teams.

Unfortunately we didn’t play our best on the second day and lost both games. However, there were many things to be learned.

The faster speed of play was the hardest for my team to get used to. We definitely need to work on our blocking, especially blocking slides, watching the hitter, and getting to our defensive spots. I hope to work personally on improving the consistency of my serve receive passing and hitting harder and timing my sets better.

I am looking forward to seeing how my team improves during the next few weeks and I hope we can do better in future tournaments.

ACT Result - 30

I took the ACT for the first time a few weeks ago and just received my scores in the mail. I scored a 30 overall. My science score was a little bit lower than I had hoped but overall I was very pleased with the outcome. There is no doubt that I will be taking the test again soon and hope to improve my score at least 2-3 points.