First Place

Today was the second Power tournament in Colorado for Kendall's volleyball team. They struggled in the first one a few weeks ago. They were ranked #1 in the top division, but lost all three matches to three tough teams. They were close, but fell apart in a few. The result was they moved from division 1 to division 2, though still ranked at the top.

Today we got up early, and I was glad we only had a 25 minute drive to get to a high school nearby. The girls warmed up, and we watched them start by taking on a new team we hadn't seen before. They didn't make the same mistakes they made last time, but they made some new ones. We were up by 2 most of the game, but we kept letting the other team hang around.

It was slightly nerve wracking to watch, but we finally won 28-26 to close out a game. In the second game we played better, and while it was contested, we won to get the day off to a good start.

I watched the second match, which was a 12 year old team against a team, Juniors B that beat us in the first tournament of the year. The 12 year olds won, and fairly easily. That was surprising, because I was worried about our last match of the day against the Juniors B.

Our second game was against the 12 year olds, and they were a scrappy team. Lots of saves, and made us work hard, but we won again. The Juniors lost again, so the secured our place as the top team, though we wanted to beat them.

We did. We won the first fairly easily, lost the second when we got down and couldn't get going, and then played tight in the third before pulling away to win easily. Exciting for the girls, and good to see them come back a few times today from being down. They had struggled with that before.

They got pins for winning, and were proud of them.

Kendall stuck hers on her bag right away.

Kendall played well today. With only 8 girls in an 8 girl rotation, she's in there regularly. No serves, but lots of time in the front row.

She's usually in the middle, and is getting to be a good center player. She had quite a few blocks today, a couple good spikes, and a bunch of dinks and tips for points.

 She gets up well and here was one of her hits. The block was late, and she got a point.

 On the bench, she's social with the other girls, and I think it's a good break for her. She's not pressed too hard to play the entire game.

But when she's in there, she's really getting up. Here she is blocking a shot.

That wasn't a block, but she had 2 blocks earlier, and 2 or 3 hits that went off her hands and up. Near the end of the last game, she had a great block. The girl on the other side really swung hard and hit the ball with a loud thump, but almost immediately there was the thump on Kendall's hands and the ball went back down on their side. They saved it and got the point, but it was something. The crowd let out a large breath on that block, with a few audible comments.

Overall an exciting morning and fun day.