The girls pulled it off: a perfect season. They lost not a single set. And L had the championship-winning kill tonight.
Perfection
volleyball
Close Call
The Girl's volleyball team finished the regular season with a perfect record. Beyond perfect -- not only did they win every match but the won them all in straight sets. Which is to say they lost not a single set. And most sets they won convincingly. Brutally.
Today was the semifinals of the year-end tournament.
Before the game, there was a special short recognition of the eighth-grade girls who would be leaving. "As you can see," said the coach, "they're the majority of the team." Next year will likely not see as many in the win column as this year. But it's still this year.
The girls made it straight to the semifinals due to their record, and they faced St. Mary's today. They won convincingly earlier this year in the regular season. And the first set today they won easily: 25-9. That's not just an easy win. That's a brutal beat-down. But the St. Mary's girls never let it get to them. They were enthusiastic and hard-working the entire set as the lead mounted and become the monster that it was.
In the second set, the Langston girls started getting sloppy, making some silly errors. Before we knew it, they were down by four, almost all the points coming from their own unforced errors. Still, I don't want to take anything away from the St. Mary's team: they were playing much better in the second set. Our girls cut the lead to one and then started slipping again. Cut the lead and then started slipping again. And then the unthinkable: set point.
Yet the girls rallied and kept their perfect record just that.
It would have been a great surprise for the St. Mary's girls to bump the big dogs off their perch (I just intentionally mixed those metaphors so thoroughly that you could serve them to James Bond).
"Did you hear? The Langston girls finally got taken down!"
"Really? By whom?"
But it was not meant to be, I suppose.
One more game -- the championship on Friday afternoon against Shannon Forest again. They almost took a set from the girls a couple of weeks ago, and in the 2019/2020 season, they took a set from the Langston girls each of the two matches they played. Including the championship.
In the evening, after dinner, the Boy and I worked on his scout project. We measured and cut all the boards, ready for assembly tomorrow.
Back to Normal
Versus Shannon Forest
The girls knew from the start of the season that today's match would be the biggest challenge. They faced Shannon Forest in the regular season and in the championship last year, and while they won both matches, they went to three sets, and each match was a real battle.
Today, when I arrived, I glanced at the scoreboard and saw our girls were down 15-10. Other than a few moments at the beginning of this or that set, it's about the only time they've been behind, and certainly the only time they'd been that far behind that far into the game. They would pull back within two points or so and then lose another two points.
I didn't think their undefeated streak would win -- I thought they'd win the final two sets if they lost the first one. They just weren't playing 100%. And to their credit, their opponents were making phenomenal saves. They didn't have as many heavy hitters as we do, but they took most of the serves and many of the hits and converted them. Still, I thought the girls' perfect season (and by that, I mean not a single set lost) might end this afternoon. In the end, though, they came back to win it 25-22.
The second set started off with our girls jumping into an early, big lead of 7-1. With a lead like that, which they maintained for most of the game (at one point it was 20-12), I thought it was a done deal. The girls of Shannon Forest had other plans, though. One thing everyone has to give those SF girls is that they never give up. Down eight points, with our girls lacking only 5 points to victory while they had to double their score and then some, they still fought for every ball. And they started clawing back. And soon it was 21-17. And I thought, "They might do to our girls what our girls just did to them." But it seemed impossible: our girls are good. They can take the hits, pop them up to the setter, who sets up one of three frontline hitters, who can then almost always hit well and often hit with incredible power and speed.
With every point, the home team scored, the home crowd erupted. The SF girls danced and screamed with each point as they pulled it back to 23-22. I could understand their joy: the Langston girls were the big dogs, so to speak. They'd rolled through the season last year and took the championship. They were doing the same this year. To take them down, to take one set -- I've been in that position. Not in sports but in academic bowl competitions. In the final match of the year, our team took down an until-then undefeated team.
Just one point down.
But it was not to be. They made a couple of errors, and we had a good hit or two, and it was all over. Our perfect season is still perfect, with one more match tomorrow night.
In the championship tournament, though, Shannon Forest will likely meet our girls again. And they will remember how they began that first set. And they will be out for revenge.
Learning
"Hey, there's a grass volleyball tournament in town this weekend. Want to go play?" L asked.
"Sure," her best friend N replied.
That's how it started. So two good friends who both have a couple years' experience playing volleyball but no experience playing two-girl volleyball -- no experience at all, not just no experience playing together in pairs volleyball -- set out this morning to see how they'd do.
It was a learning experience, to say the least.
Not only did they not win a single set, their total points scored for six sets (54) didn't even average out to 10 points per game. To say they got their butts kicked is really quite an understatement.
It's not something she's used to in volleyball. Last year, her school's team won every single match and only dropped three or four sets the entire season. This year, with only two matches remaining, they haven't lost a single set. They are used to delivering the smackdown, not receiving it.
But it wasn't always like that either for the Girl. When she first started playing volleyball, she tried out for the school team in sixth grade and didn't make the cut. We put her in YMCA volleyball and her team didn't do well at all.
As a parent watching my daughter play volleyball, I always have some mixed emotions. During the last season, her team struggled mightily: they didn’t win a single match, if memory serves, and they only won a handful of sets. It was rough. Lots of frustration in the car after games.
“We won’t ever win.”
Several matches, they were swept, three sets to nothing. There was nothing immediately redeemable about that. I said what any parent would say: “You’re getting stronger.” “This is building character.” “This shows how tough you are, that you keep at it despite the challenges.” (Source)
Still, even then they weren't getting beaten brutally.
Today, they were. Completely outclassed. Completely and mercilessly beaten by girls who had much more experience than they do.
Point after point, set after set, game after game, they kept playing. They lost by scores like 21-7 and kept playing. They made silly mistakes and went for several points without actually earning a point but gaining points only from unforced errors and still, they kept playing.
I'm not sure when I was prouder of L.
As the morning progressed, they improved. They figured out some of the little strategic differences that pairs volleyball demands. They worked together more. Their game became a little more analytic. They grew.
What's more, when we asked the girls if they'd enjoyed it, they insisted they'd had fun. And I believe them. So a successful lesson on many levels.
Volleyball Tuesday
The girls had another game today. It was the same as previous games: complete slaughter. At one point, the girls were up in the first set something like 18-3. The coach, being an individual of character, always starts pulling out his big hitters when it's obvious where the game is going, but at the same time, he wants to give them court time. (Still, when the poor opponents can't even return an underhand serve after the coach pulled our best server while she was serving, what's the quality of play they get?)
This was a private school, the private school in the area. Eighth-grade tuition is $21,510. The team in Spartanburg we beat mercilessly was also from a private school, but its tuition was only something like $17k a year. For whatever reason, one would think they would have better teams. And they probably do: it turns out that in most of these private schools that also include a high school, the eighth graders get shuttled up to the high school JV or even varsity team, so our girls are playing sixth and seventh graders.
Today was only a scrimmage game, though. It doesn't count toward anyone's record. Still, if it was only a scrimmage, why couldn't we scrimmage with the JV or even varsity team?
Before and After
Volleyball Thursday
Volleyball Thursday
Volleyball Wednesday
The Girl's team had another game today -- their fourth or so. It was against St. Joseph's, a local Catholic school that houses grades K-12. Their girls looked awfully small. And then we learned that they're just sixth- and seventh-grade players. The eighth-grade players move up and play on the high school team.
That put things in a whole new perspective, to be sure.
Still, it's not about winning and losing they say -- and I happen to believe as well. The Girl did the best she could, shook off mistakes and kept going, and was a constant encouragement to her team members.