Last Volleyball

Last night was, hopefully, Kendall’s last volleyball practice of the season. The national qualifier is Sunday and this week they were scrimmaging the 15-2s team (they’re 13-1). I missed Tuesday, but went last night. I suffered a bit as the knee wasn’t too happy and since it gets stiff, I walked around a bit.

It was interesting to watch. The 15s are way more athletic and scrappier. They all move for balls, rarely get in each other’s way, and talk. They talk a lot, calling out “in”, ”"out”, “Mine”, “Help” and more. I know from playing with adults, that stuff is very helpful and useful. They hit harder for sure, though they make service mistakes like we do. Probably less, but they make them. They also mishit and have issues, but they just react and move quicker. It seems our 13s think a bit too much.

Kendall did OK. We could see things were off and she wasn’t always in the game. Later we found out why. She spent a lot of time in the middle hitter spot and she doesn’t like that. One of the better players is out for practice and Sun, so Kendall got moved up to play, but in the middle. She had a little outside left time, and some good hits, and a few good ones in the middle. She also had some great blocks, stuffing a few of the taller 15s, and tipping a few more.

She was upset, and we told her to talk to the coach and express herself. We’ll see, but looking forward to seeing her play more this week.