A somewhat frustrating day for the girls: they lost their first match in straight sets to a team from Chattanooga wearing red. The reds hit well, made few mistakes, and powered through our girls in back-to-back sets. They won the first set 25-14 and then came back from something like 13-7 to win the second set 25-23.

The girls played two other teams, beating them both. Our second game was against the DiamondT Spikerz. We beat them fairly convincingly in straight sets, 25-19 and 25-22.

The final team our girls beat was the Volley One team. They won one set against the Chattanooga Reds, who’d beaten us the first match. Our girls demolished them — and they’d won one set against the team that demolished us.

After playing three games, the girls scored the final game. It was against the Diamond Ts and the Chattanooga Reds.  The DiamondTs, whom we’d beaten in straight sets, crushed the Reds 25-19 in the first set and demolished them 25-14 in the second.

The team that we beat in straight sets beat the only team that beat us in straight sets in straight sets.

“We were so annoyed,” L said of it.

In the end, the Reds did the same thing against the DiamondTs that we’d done against the Reds: they beat themselves.

Watching these girls play shows me again and again how important that mental game is, how it’s often more important than the physical game.