This past Saturday we participated in a spring tournament at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (UMHB). We played 3 matches, 3 sets in each, giving us the opportunity to get some much needed court time and build on the skills and fundamentals we've been working on over the spring.
Our first match was against Howard Payne. Having never seen Howard Payne play before, I had no idea what to expect. After a little bit of a slow start, the team started to play pretty well. We reached our goal with serve receive in game 1 and as a result were able to pull out a close win. Game two was more of the same as Cayleigh Drake and Camryn Kazmierski had a combined 18 kills at the end of game 2. Game 3 was a close one, with both teams having set point, but fortunately we were able to pull it out in the end 30-28 for a three game sweep. Of course I don't have that game on tape because as always, I'm an idiot and ran out of room on the camera.
Our second match was against host UMHB. We went back and forth with them for a little bit, but they pulled away in game one to win 25-18. One of my old club players, Tina Miller, did a fantastic job against us and it took us a long time to even begin to slow her down. Also, former Hill player Anissa Garcia is now the assistant coach at UMHB. It was wonderful seeing her there after she finished a very solid senior season.
Game two was close as we lost 25-23, but we just made too many errors. We had 8 hitting errors, a missed serve, a ball handling error, and two defensive errors. All told, that's 10 points plus a couple of extra rallies we could have won. These are things we are looking clean up for next season,
In game 3 we did an excellent job of siding out. Our passing was better, which allowed us to get 17 kills in a 25 point set. Unfortunately we did miss 5 serves which allowed UMHB to hang around. We eventually won 25-20 but I would have liked to see us a little more mentally focused on the whole game and not just the side out aspect.
After a short lunch break, we finished up with Wylie. Wylie is an NAIA school that finished second in their conference, losing only to the eventual national champions from UT-Brownsville. This was a tough way to end the day for us as Wylie was the wrong team to play at this point. They forced us into playing their slow it down, take time between points, kick the volleyball a few times before kicking it under the net kind of game. It was tough for us to start our own energy after playing 6 sets in less than 3 hours and we did not do a very good job as a staff getting the team ready for this match. As a result we lost in three straight. We did not pass well, our serving game continued to abandon us. This long day is one of the reasons we do not play 3 matches in one day during the season like some other junior colleges do.
So at this point our spring season is over. First off we must acknowledge the sophomores who stayed with the program for two full season: Lauren Myers, Haley Goldwater, Brittany Berry, and Taelor Higgins. They have added much to the program and they will be successful wherever they may be in the fall.
Secondly, we made it through the spring very healthy. We have a few minor bumps and bruises, but no major injuries to speak of. That is a credit to the girl's work ethic and to our strength coach Aaron Baker. After the first round of fitness testing yesterday, all of the freshmen have added to their jumping ability and explosiveness. Hopefully we can continue this over the summer and into next season.
I will see you tomorrow for part 3 of our "Week of posts".
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