Keep Climbing
Our team’s hopes and expectations of ourselves had never been higher coming into a tournament. Building on a great showing at Mile High Madness in January, we had two months to take the next step, and that next step was to make a deep run at a tournament title. We made the transition to a 6-2 rotation from the 5-1 rotation we had run for a couple of months prior. This was a big change, but it opened up some exciting new possibilities for the girls.
Pool Play
Day 1
We started at 8:00 AM sharp at Boomtown in Aurora. And Boomtown it was for our servers. The girls’ hard work on their service game paid off as Paige, Hasini, Riva, Cambrya, Ashley, and Makena served our first two opponents into Elbert County. Neither team managed to score more than 9 points against us in any set. Any time the team managed to do this last year for Coach Sam, she would throw them a Pizza Party. Think I would have to raise my credit limit to offer the same deal this year.
In the final game of the day, we had a crossover match against our sisters, Spikes 12/13s. After a lopsided first set, the 12/13s opened up a double-digit lead on us before we ultimately prevailed. Big-time congratulations to Bodell and her young fighters for bringing home 2nd Place in the Horsetooth Final. Great job!
Thus, a fast Day 1 was done with the girls taking care of business in undefeated fashion, winning every set, and allowing a tournament-low 61 total points against.
This Tournament
2022-2023 Tournaments
We positioned ourselves as good as possible to reach our goal. We were seeded into the top bracket, Longs Peak, with five other teams, three of which were also undefeated. We drew undefeated Hot Shotz 14 Black for an 8:00 AM matchup, this being the morning after losing an hour of sleep for the start of Daylight Savings Time. But as Pasky said so did our opponents. Undeterred, the girls went toe-to-toe with the tough opponent, fighting for every point, but we were narrowly edged out 22-25, 23-25.
This brought our championship aspirations for this tournament to an end but did not extinguish our competitive spirit. We had one more match against Core Values 14U Blue. After dropping the first set 22-25, the girls rebounded and won the second 25-21 and the decider 15-10 with pure grit. Aileen brought the lumber and Presley had her best game to push us to victory.
For the Alpine Summit tournament, we may not have reached the summit we were looking for, but we continue to climb higher and see vistas more beautiful than the ones that came before.
Onward and upward!
Coach Andy
March 13, 2023
Bracket Play
Day 2
Overall Results
3rd Place
Match Record
4-1
Final Finishes
Scores
