Varsity Volleyball 2011

Location – ISK/ISL

The process of this was tryouts, then practice and games. Tryouts and practice were at ISK. Our team plays in the ISL, which is the Inter-Schools League. I was a substitute hitter this season. I say hitter because I was trained and played as both Power (hitting on the left) and Right Side (hitting from the right). My job as a hitter, from either position, was simple. Hit the ball, hard, into the opponents court in anyway so that we get the point. I could hit it right at the floor, or hit off someone’s chest if they were in the way of the ball. Honestly, my aim wasn’t so good so the majority of the time it just hit someone and flew away, but we still got the point so it worked out well enough. This was a completely new position for me. The reason I was trained and played here this season is because I am most likely going to be playing in one of these positions in the following season.

            As I talked about in my previous post for a different volleyball season “Volleyball is 100% a team sport. There is no possible way to play it alone. As a player can only touch the ball once before touching it again (can’t touch it twice consecutively), it is necessary to play collaboratively with your teammates. Another aspect of teamwork that is important in volleyball is practice. If only half the team shows up for practice it is almost useless. I was at all practices, unless I had a medical appointment (like dentist or such), which only occurred once or twice.”

            This season we came in second place. This is a disappointment. We had the ability and people to win, we just got into a bad mindset, failed to find our groove. I say ‘we’ because its ‘win as team, lose as a team.’ If we’re talking about individuality, which seemingly contradicts me saying volleyball is a 100% team sport but doesn’t because even in a team sport there are people who play better than others each game, I played a good game in the finals. I was bit nervous, however I played a solid defense and earned a few points on offense, I could have done better, but I am at least satisfied by the way I played. Also, as a team, we didn’t fall apart in our lose, we all knew it should have been ours. However, we congratulated the opposing team, had a final team huddle, then left to each process the lose in our own way, and that was the end of the season, can’t wait till the next one, maybe we’ll actually come in first (ISK volleyball has come in second in both ISL and volleyball for the past 2 seasons, that’s 4 second places, and each one should have been ours).