Spikes 14-2 assembled at the dome before our 8:00 AM starting match versus Core Values 14U Blue. Outside ambient air temperature: -12 degrees Fahrenheit. Normally, this wouldn’t matter, but since we were playing in a bubble which required air to be constantly blown in from the outside to remain inflated, it made for chilly conditions on the court. But our young athletes were up to the test, coming out strong and handling Core Values in straight sets.

We awaited our next opponent, High Desert Elite 14, who had made their way up from Pueblo. Our girls played hard, but everything was just a little off, like watching a movie when the sound is a couple of frames behind. We lost the first set by five and the second set by two in a frustrating defeat, the first for the team this season. We finished second in our pool of three, and so played the third-place team, Believe 14-1, from another pool in the final match of the day. Our girls jumped on them in the first set 25-17 and held them off in the second 25-21 to end the day with a 2-1 record, which dropped us to #5 in the Division.

After a massive pushback from the clubs and parents, the tournament directors moved all scheduled games at the dome to the University of Northern Colorado Fieldhouse in Greeley for the last two days of the tournament.  This was welcome news but meant that our first match on Sunday started at 4:00 PM. The girls took the court in a pleasant toasty atmosphere against Bare Bones 14, a very disciplined and cohesive team from a small town in northern WY. I asked their coach how the drive was, and she responded, “It was fine. Oh, except for that 60-mile stretch where there was a ground blizzard and we all thought we were going to die.”

Spikes came out fighting, but Bare Bones were just that much better in every respect, and they dispatched us in straight sets before we knew what hit us. Unperturbed, the girls bounced back and smashed CO Crossfire 14-1 25-13, 25-14, taking their frustration out on the ball and their opponent. We once again finished second in our three-team pool and had to wait for the other pools to catch up to see who our opponent would be.  So, we waited. And waited. And finally, at 9:15 PM, our match scheduled for 7:30 PM got underway against mighty Juggernaut 14-National 2.

We were stuffed into an annex to the fieldhouse, and the loud, claustrophobic conditions hung over the court oppressively. Everyone was hungry and tired, but the girls managed to set their jaw and slug their way to a chaotic first set victory 25-22. Juggernaut came out on top in round two, delivering their best body blows and winning on the scorecard 25-21. So, the two heavyweight pugilists dragged themselves exhausted and sweaty from their respective corners to the center of the ring one last time. Somebody had to win this bloody battle of attrition, and that somebody was Juggernaut 15-13 for the decision. It could have gone either way. But not Spikes way. At least not on this weekend.

Near misses against High Desert Elite on Day 1 and Juggernaut on Day 2 knocked us into the Silver Bracket at the NOCO location on Day 3, so we knew our title defense was over. But we still had a bye, and two more victories would put us atop the Silver Bracket and make the drive home a little happier. We drew a familiar foe, a Believe 14-1 team we beat in the first two matchups. Believe came out with a strong service game, dealing us a four-point loss in the first set. But our athletes returned the favor in the second set to force the decider. Apropos for the weekend, however, we narrowly missed in the third and fell 14-16.

Our tournament was done, and the results weren’t what any of us wanted our expected of ourselves. Like last tournament, the team fought hard for every point and maintained a great attitude throughout. But unlike last tournament, the plays and points at critical moments never materialized. It will be up to me and the girls to work hard over the course of the next two months to prepare for Colorado Crossroads. To prepare to be more decisive, faster, and more dangerous in order to lift our margin of error from a few points to something a little less cardiac over the course of a tournament. But the girls already have the things that can’t be coached, now they just need a little more of what can be.

The journey of 1,000 miles continues, and the path points up from here. Until the next!

Coach Andy

January 16, 2024