Sunday, April 29, 2018

Leah's First Volleyball Tournament Today

Leah decided that she has been enjoying volleyball at school enough to join a local volleyball team.

She made the team after a tryout and after many practices, today was her first tournament.

The competition was a bit stiff. She's in the 11-12 age group and was facing teams in the 13-14 age group and those few years do make a difference.

The tournament was held up in Holly so we all piled in the car and headed up there. Parents had a $5 admission fee to enter the gymnasium, likely to help pay for renting the facility for the day.

It's quite a high energy sport - teams cheering during play, lots of happy yelling, and this tournament featured lots of good sportsmanship and positive reinforcement from team members. The parents and coaches were also all quite relentlessly positive and other parents were helpful in explaining to us newbies some of the things that needed doing and understanding the scoring system and referee hand signals.

I'm proud to report that Leah went hard for every ball, including one she got to in a dive, and had not the slightest bit of quit in her. Her serve scored a winning point in one of the games which was very cool.

Her team held their own against the older players, winning some games, and keeping it close even when they lost, such as a 24-26 loss and similar. All the girls were encouraging each other and were in good spirits the entire time, and some of them are very good indeed.

She enjoyed it a lot and the season has just begun.

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