Tourneys, tourneys, tourneys

I got back from Vegas a couple of weeks ago.  The Las Vegas Classic tournament had many challenges including constant play delay because the tournament sites had leaking roofs from all the rain and some of the courts were wet.  Before this event, I had been asked to move up from the 15-2 team to play with the 15-1 team for the rest of the season so this was my first time playing with my new team and we were at an out-of-state tournament so the pressure was on.  As a U15 team with all players (except me) currently being 14 years old we played in the U16 Club division playing U16 teams from the entire nation. (We are listed as Club GSL 16-1 for this tourney.)

The first night of the tournament we had a rought start.  We played the teams that ended up being ranked #10 and #5 ranked for the tournament.  We lost those 2 matches but were able to pull out a win.

In between each match I not only got to have fun with my new team and learn more about these girls, but I had to refocus myself and leave the last game on the court. As everyone knows, everyone makes mistakes, the only thing that matters is if you can shake them off. The worst part of volleyball is when you make multiple mistakes in a row and you can’t get those errors out of your head. Especially during a match it is very hard to slap yourself out of it, the breaks in between games was my time to regroup myself. I also looked at the positives. After a bad game I would talk about what I did well and what my teammates did well. This was a chance for me to see how I can get better without looking at the negatives. 

The best time to focus about my game was before the day started. Every morning (if I had time), I would wake up and eat a large, healthy breakfast at the hotel, still evaluating the previous day by looking at the positives and thinking how I could improve my play. At times I went to the pool to relax. I didn’t want to tire myself out so I would just bathe in the sun since that’s a not a common thing in Utah in the middle of winter. And  I would go to venues hours before my starting time and watch other teams play which let me watch some amazing athletes.

The second day of the tournament we had more success.  We won 2 of the 3 matches we played and the one match we lost we took to a 3rd set.  Even though we lost that match it was one of the MOST FUN matches I had ever played!  We all walked away from that loss with a feeling that we gave it our all.

Overall Las Vegas was a fun tournament. My team had done a great job playing against girls older than us. I finally got to experience what it was like to play on a team that had fun while still being competitive. We went undefeated the final day of the tournament and won our U16 pool!!

Returning from the Las Vegas Classic we went right into the next weekend playing in the Utah AAU Power League.  Our 15-1 team was the highest ranked U15 team in Utah/Idaho but unfortunately we slipped a little and lost to Club Utah on the first day of the 2-day Power Tournament.  We did well the second day of the tournament and ended up going up in the Silver Bracket against U16 & U17 teams!!  This weekend we play another Power League tournament and get our chance to regain our spot as the highest ranking U15 team in Utah/Idaho.

I did have some fun Aces at the Power League tournament. 

I can’t wait for my next out-of-state tournaments: 

SCVA Jr. National Qualifier:  April 7-9 playing in U15 Open
NCVA Far Western:  April 28-30 playing in U15 Open.


Volley on!
Brie