Tag: volleyball (Page 2 of 2)

Kid Sports Roundup

November 4, 2015 / DB

Another October down the drain.

In all this baseball madness I was not in the mood to write about much else. So some catching up is in order. Let’s begin with wrapping up the younger two girls’ fall sports experiences.

When we last discussed sports, C. was building up for her final race of the year, the City Championship meet. This was going to be the biggest meet St. P’s ran in, with something like 27 schools taking part. So big, in fact, that the girls and boys ran on different days.

Once again, she did awesome. She finished 41st overall, 20th in her grade. She was the third St. P’s girl to finish; first of their third graders. Most importantly, she cut her time for the fourth-straight race. In her first individual race in early September, she ran 3K in 16:03. In the City meet, she finished in 15:23. Dropping 40 seconds in five weeks is pretty damn good!

She was very excited with her race. When I found her in the mass of humanity at the finish line, she smiled and said, “I threw up in my mouth a little while I was running!” Based on her tone, I think she contributed some of her speed to that near disaster.

She loved her first year of cross country. Her coaches were pleased with how far she came this year. And I think we’re all excited to see what she can do next year if she runs through the summer and when she’s in the top half of her age group.

L’s soccer season ran until the Sunday before Halloween. After that rough start, where she looked over-matched physically and her team got stomped, things got much better. She scored at least one goal in every game and her team never lost again. She continued to improve her ball control, her passing got really good, and she was often lining up to use her left foot in traffic, something her coach wanted her to focus on.

There was a game mid-season that we feared would be like the season opener. Their opponents looked to be heavy with second graders. One boy in particular looked to be closer to 9 than 8. While we watched the kids warm up, we were a little worried.

Misplaced worry, it turned out. Our kids ran circles around the bigger kids. The stole the ball and passed away. They ran to space and waited for a teammate to find them. They peppered the goalie with shots all day. The final score ended up being something ridiculous like 10–1.[1]

The biggest thing is she had fun. She loves soccer. She can’t wait for practice nights and Sundays when games roll around. She’s lucky that she’s had a coach the past two seasons who works the kids hard, but also keeps it fun. For their last practice, he turned them loose and had them play a modified version of Australian Rules football. She was rolling around with the second grade boys and having a great time.

And now we’re done with sports for a bit. M. will begin volleyball practice over Christmas break. So we have nearly two months where we don’t have to fight traffic to get to 5:30 practices four nights a week, or have our weekends dominated by games.

We know this because the older sisters, all fifth and sixth graders, made a scoreboard and were tracking goals. Thank goodness the other team’s parents were sitting across the field. ↩

Season’s End

March 13, 2015 / DB

Great seasons often come to an end early in March. Teams that cruised through the regular season run into injuries, over-confidence, or just better opponents and walk off the court for the final time with an L next to their name.

That happened to M.’s volleyball team last night.

After winning their first nine matches, including the first two of the tournament, they dropped a 3-game match in the quarterfinals last night, losing 15–11 in game three.

They played hard, but the other team, St. B’s, was just better than them. Which hurt a little more as St. P’s had beaten this team during the regular season. But St. P’s was missing their second-best player, who had mono, and their normally reliable servers all seemed to lose their mojo in the tournament and struggled to rip off those 5–6–7 point runs that were so common during the regular season.

Most significantly, though, every St. B’s girl could serve. They weren’t all great, but each of them could get the ball over the net and into play. As I mentioned early in the season, that’s like 75% of the battle in fourth grade volleyball. Where M.’s team was killing itself by serving the ball into the net or out-of-bounds and wasting scoring chances, the other team almost always got 2–3 points from each server.

St. P’s lost game one handily. They had an early lead in game two, but trailed 20–13 before roaring back and taking a 24–22 lead. But St. B’s got it to 24-all and were serving for the match[1] when their server put it into the net. They never had the lead in game three but were as close as 11–9.

I think the parents were more disappointed than the girls, although there were some long faces in the final post-game huddle of the year. Cupcakes in the school colors helped ease the pain a little, I think.

To be honest, though, they were fortunate to get to the quarterfinals. In Sunday’s opening round, they won game one easily, muddled through game two, and were down 7–1 in game three before rallying to win.

Then in Wednesday’s second round, they again romped in game one and slumped through game two, and were down 11–10 in game three after losing four-straight points against a really tough server. She sent one more high, looping serve to the back line. The St. P’s receiver, who had muffed three-straight returns, smacked the ball and sent it on a line drive toward the net. A teammate just happened to be in the way. As she ducked to protect herself, she got her arms up, popped the ball across the net, and it landed in. 11–11. St. P’s got it to 13–11, then lost serve and another point. 13-all. Fortunately St. P’s best server got the final two points to send them to the quarters.

I’ll say this, though. Losing last night may have been a good thing. The team they would have faced in the semifinals was amazing. They were also from St. B’s. They also had seven or eight girls who could serve. But they also had three girls who could serve better than St. P’s best server. One girl could serve overhanded from five feet behind the back line and pick what spot she hit. A couple others were still underhanded servers, but hit it very high, which always causes confusion on the other side. And then their best server was also an underhanded server, but sent it to nearly the rafters and then got the ball to knuckle on the way down. In their quarterfinal, she served 21-straight points to open a game! She only missed out on serving out the game because her coach asked her to switch to overhand serves and she flubbed a toss. Not sure what’s in the water fountains at St. B’s, but it clearly helps with your serves!

If our girls couldn’t handle St. B’s second-best team, there was no way they could have hung with their top team.

M. played her best game of the year last night. She had several returns and kept most of them in play. She looked confident in taking the ball and if her aim wasn’t always accurate, she generally hit it with the correct amount of power. She never got comfortable serving this year, and her coach subbed her out before she had a chance to serve in each of the tournament games. Which was fine with us. But I’m hoping that the combination of her liking volleyball so much, her realization of how important serving is, and not getting to serve in the tournament will finally get her to listen to me when I want to go out and work on serves in the driveway. As I told her last night, it’s really not that hard and if you can just get the ball over the net and keep it in play, you give your team a great chance to win the point.

So it was a great season overall. They didn’t lose a game until their seventh match and didn’t lose a match until the quarterfinals of the tournament. It was a pretty good start for a bunch of girls who had never played before.

Now we take two weeks off for spring break and begin kickball immediately after. C. will begin her first softball season and L. will be back on the soccer fields after spring break, too.

Stupid me did not know until last night that you only have to win by two in the third game at this level. So this would be the final point of the game regardless. ↩

Small School Benefits

February 25, 2015 / DB

M.’s volleyball team wrapped up their season over the past few days.

Sunday, they played the only other undefeated team in their division. St. P’s won the first game easily, then struggled in the second and lost their first game of the year. I was running the scoreboard and both I and the mom next to me keeping the scorebook were a little antsy. Even more so when St. B’s rushed out to a 5–1 lead in the third game.

But St. P’s rallied, got the lead, and closed it out for a 15–11 win.

Then, in their final regular season game yesterday, they followed the same script. Won the first game convincingly, couldn’t get a serve over the net and lost the second game handily, and after a tense stretch where every serve was a side-out, finally got four-straight points to close it out 15–9.

So they finish the season 7–0. Unlike kickball, where only the division champs go to the tournament, it looks like everyone gets to play in the city volleyball tournament. And it looks like every other undefeated team is on the opposite side of the bracket. If they win their first game, over teams they beat easily already, they’ll have to play the team that pushed them last Sunday to get to the semifinals. If everyone can find their serves again, they have a pretty good shot at the final four.

One of my favorite things about going to school-sponsored sports is how I get to see the girls interact with kids from different grades. My view tends to be limited to what I see when I’m working in the library, managing playdates, or other times when I’m inside the school. And those are almost always moments where it is just one of the girl’s classes on its own.

But at kickball and volleyball games, I see fifth graders run over and give L. hugs. I see C. hanging out with one of her buddies, and then that girl’s sister who is in third grade. When I ask who So-and-so is in the 5th–6th grade game, M. knows and can say hi to them after the game.

This morning at drop off, when L. opened her door she yelled, “Emma!” I looked at the smaller girl walking by, thinking that was Emma. But, instead, a very tall girl smiled and waved to L.. Because the kindergartners all have an Eighth Grade Buddy L. both knows, and looks up to the biggest kids in school.

A couple weeks ago, when I was picking M. up at a friend’s house, the friend’s eighth-grade brother walked into the room and said, “I know your daughter, L.. She’s pretty cool.”

When you have two sisters, relatively close in age, and go to a fairly small school, there’s a lot of overlap. Growing up in fairly large schools[1] and not having siblings meant my friends were almost exclusively from my grade until high school.

I think it’s pretty cool that L. knows a bunch of eighth graders, C. knows who the cool girls in sixth grade are, and M. has the whole K–3 hallway class rosters memorized. And even if they don’t directly know another kid, they often are in class with a sibling or simply know who they are because you kind of know who everyone is anyway.

I’m not saying the same thing can’t happen at a bigger public school. Especially if you have three kids across five grades. But it is way different than how I grew up. And I think the sense of community they have for each other, with the big kids looking out for the little kids and everyone at least passingly famiL.r with everyone else, is a really cool thing.

Once we moved to Kansas City, I remember my school having four classes per grade. ↩

On The Courts

February 17, 2015 / DB

Long weekends suck. At least when the weather is crappy and you have nowhere to go.

St. P’s annually stretches out President’s Day weekend to build some snow make-up days in the schedule before spring break. Since we’ve had no snow days this year, we’ve been lucky enough to have a five-day weekend. When the temps have been stuck below freezing with wind chills below zero the entire time. And no snow to play in.

I was sick of my kids 48 hours ago and we still have another day to get through.

Serenity now…

Both Saturday and Sunday had nice, short diversions, though. M. had volleyball games both days.

Her team is good. Really good. Coming into the weekend, they had swept every match 2–0 and only once had the other team made it to even 19 points against them.[1] They have several decent players, but one girl in particular is kind of kick ass. She serves overhand, and hard. With some swerve. In a sport where at least half the players can’t get an underhand serve from a box inside the main court over the net, having a couple girls who can serve is huge. When you have someone who has pace and movement on the ball, you’re tough to beat. And this girl is also athletic, so she can get around the court and return balls not hit directly to her. A week ago, she nearly blocked a girl at the net and came close to spiking.

Again, she’s a fourth grader. Although she is, by far, the tallest kid in her grade at St. P’s.

Anyway, she was gone over the long weekend. So there was some nervousness as the team had two games, and one loss might be enough to knock them out of the post-season tournament.

Should have not worried. They crushed both teams they played, easily. They were actually behind 5–0 in one game and still roared back to win without much effort.

There are just two games left in the season. The standings are a week behind for some reason, but it looks like one of the teams they will play was still undefeated as of a week ago. Win that game, and our girls will go to the city championship tournament. Which would be pretty cool. St. P’s won a couple city championships in boys basketball last week, including the fourth grade team. So it would be awesome if the volleyball girls matched them.

M. has done well. She served out the match Saturday, winning the final two points. She’s typical of most of the girls on her team. Sometimes the serve gets over the net; sometimes it doesn’t. She’s made some good returns. She’s not super aggressive, but that fits her personality. I think she likes volleyball better than kickball since it’s less dependent on strength.

It’s been really frustrating for me to watch the games, though. As a few readers know, from being on a team with me, I played a lot of volleyball back in the day. In my final few years in Kansas City, I generally played on two teams at a time — both 6-on–6 and 4-on–4 — in my employer’s rec leagues. I’m not going to pretend I was great, but I was a pretty solid player, better on defense than offense at the net, decent serve, and able to chase down and return just about anything that came to me in the back line.

So when four girls stand there and watch the ball hit the floor between them, it kind of drives me crazy. I know, they’re fourth graders playing the game for the first time. Still, I do a lot of muttering under my breath during games.

Fortunately, they get better quickly. We can already see improvement in M. and her teammates. Sunday all the games were running behind and we got to watch a 5th/6th grade game between two good teams. It was fun to watch, as just about every serve made it over the net and most girls could return the ball. The St. P’s team was even passing to the middle then setting the ball for outside hitters, although the hits were decidedly below the net. Still, good, fundamental volleyball.

If you haven’t played volleyball since high school gym, all games are rally scoring now. Which means the team that wins the point, gets a point, even if they were receiving the serve. First two games are to 25, win by two. If a third game is needed, they play to 15, again needing to win by two. ↩

Pre-Thanksgiving Notes

November 25, 2014 / DB

A busy few days between get-togethers, kid activities, and prepping for Thanksgiving.

How about a few notes?

M. has kicked off her volleyball career. She’s been to one skills session and another evaluation session as the fourth graders at St. P’s get slotted onto the appropriate team for their first year of CYO play. I haven’t watched any of her practices, but I’m hopeful that she can hang in there and make the occasional pass or serve it over the net, rather than be fearful of the ball.

Last week I told her how I played a ton of volleyball in my 20s, often in two leagues at once at my former employer, and that seemed to interest her. She was especially impressed when I told her my team won the 4-on–4 league one year.

“So did you get, a really big trophy?”
“Nope. Just a t-shirt that said ‘Champions’ on it. But we wore them to the gym all the time so everyone knew.”
“Cool!”

I’d love it if she got some of her dad’s hyper-competitiveness on the court. But I just hope she has fun.

Saturday was fairly warm here, so I spent a solid chunk of the day cleaning up leaves and doing some pre-winter trimming of bushes. I was following the KU score, but didn’t feel any urgency to get inside and watch as Oklahoma pounded them. Of course, when I saw how many yards Samaje Perine had, I made it inside to see his record-breaking run.

A pretty pathetic performance by the KU defense, which had shown marked improvement in recent weeks. Also a shame to see Tony Sands fall two places in two weeks on the all-time, single-game rushing list.

Which brings up a good story. The day Sands ran for his then-record 396 yards, it was cold and nasty in Lawrence. A lot of people stayed home as KU played a pretty weak MU team. A few of us, though, stayed through the final rush that put Sands above Marshall Faulk’s record. We even slapped Tony on his shoulder pads as he walked off the field.

But one friend was apparently very sick that day. He claims he had pneumonia, a terrible fever, and could barely breath. He tried to make it out the door when he heard Sands’ yardage building up on the radio. But he was too weak to make it out. Or so he insisted.

We still give him grief about that. We have downgraded whatever illness he had to sniffles and a tickle in his throat, while he now claims he was on death’s doorstep.

So, of course, I sent out a message yesterday wondering if any OU students sneezed a couple times and decided to stay in their dorm room and watch the game rather than walk to the stadium and stand in the rain for 3+ hours and thus missed seeing Perine go off first hand.

Good times.

A week ago we went out on a snowy Sunday and bought a bunch of new outdoor Christmas decorations. Don’t worry, they’re neither put outside nor lit up yet. There are plenty of people around our neighborhood who flipped theirs on over the weekend. It’s one thing to put them up on a warm day when you know you may not have another chance. It’s another thing completely to go ahead and turn them on before Thanksgiving. When will this war on Thanksgiving cease?

I do have to admit, though, I’ve already checked a bunch of our lights, I have things organized for easy unpacking on Friday and Saturday when it is time to get all the decorations out. But not until I watch my Cheers “Thanksgiving Orphans” episode and drink something tasty!

Our Thanksgiving preparations are pretty locked in. Still some cleaning to do around the house, but we’ve had an overnight guest and a small gathering over the past week so a lot of the heavy cleaning has already been knocked out. We’ll have 17 or 18, I can’t keep track, for a late afternoon dinner. We’re only doing a few of the sides and some of the dessert, so while I’ll be busy getting those things together, it won’t be a full day of cooking for us.

I’m sure many of you have been holding your breath for this news, but I believe I will begin unveiling my favorite songs of the year on December 8. This year I’ll share two songs a day so we’ll be wrapped up on Dec. 19, when I imagine a lot of you will be knocking off for a week or more. I’m listening to the song that will be #1 right now, no hints though. The top 10 is very strong. The second ten, well there’s some significant drop-off there.

Boys high school basketball began last tonight in Indiana. Tonight I’m covering one of my southern teams that is coming up north. I have a few girls games logged already, but it’s always interesting to do the boys for the first time. The girls team I’ve covered is very fast up-and-down the court, but the boys are usually a couple steps faster and it takes a quarter or two to get used to the pace so I’m getting my stats recorded while also keeping an eye on the action.