So, I FINALLY was able to play for my volleyball league on Tuesday and lemme tell you, I love playing volleyball in a competitive setting. So today, Im gonna be doing a run down of how the match went and my individual gameplay.
First off, we were versus team 9, Team Cassie. I had spectated this team before and kinda knew how well they play and how they play but when we went up against them yesterday I literally could only remember one person. A kinda short guy who was rather buff and could jump, he stood out as their strongest player and their best spiker, so I tagged him. Of course, leave it to me to try and single out their best player XD. Well, the first set we lost, and I think the score was something like 25-16. Yeah, it was a hard loss BUT, in this league there is like no warm up time so I personally always expect to lose the first match because our team is one to warm up and then do much better. In the first set my individual gameplay was alright, DEFINITELY not what it should’ve been BUT I did block their best player and scored a point off of it, which was really good, not for the point but because I used a blocking technique to do it.
So, this blocking technique is often used in beach volleyball to try and trick the opponent to hit to a certain spot, and then you jump to the spot. So imagine the enemy spiker is coming straight towards you, getting ready to jump up and spike the ball. You (the blocker) line up right in front of his hitting hand (lets just say his right hand) and would normally jump straight up, which works, sometimes. What I did was take a single step to my right (We were on the right-most side of the court right next to the net btw) and get prepared to jump and block if he were to hit right down my out line and barely squeeze the ball in. BUT, I knew he probably wouldn’t hit down the line but I tried to make him think that that is were I wanted to block. So, I stepped one step to the right, he jumped and THEN, I jumped from my spot up and to the left as far as I could to block the shot. He spiked the ball, the ball firmly hit my full left hand and shot down to their side of the court, giving us a point. Honestly, it was such a good feeling. If my volleyball league wasn’t such a chill, everyone stay calm, type of league I probably would’ve screamed from excitement. AND THEN, to top it off, him and I made eye contact after the point ended and he gave me a high five under the net. It was one of those high fives where you both mutually respect each other now. It was a good feeling. That block was the highlight of my night.
OKAY NOW, moving on, the second set we swapped sides and we kinda realized that the side we were playing on kinda sucked. That was because in the gym we were playing in, there is a softball/baseball net that is attached to the ceiling on one side of the gym, which probably made the height limit for us at like 13 feet, which, in volleyball, is not high…at all. We played the next set good though and we managed to pull out a win 25-17(I think). I spiked a few balls, which was cool. I still was not aware of my form and technique when I went to spike so thats sad because I have nothing to reflect on. Maybe I will start to record my games just so I can rewatch them, I would find that useful and quite enjoyable to be honest. The second set was our best one as a team to be honest, some of our original crew couldn’t make it, so we had a couple of new players on our team that have played in leagues before but never on our team. The second set really went well for us and I felt as if the whole team had a contribution to the win, it felt like it was the match where one of our newbies (Lets call him Thomas for now) really started to get into the match more and took a bigger role in the win and Thomas was tall and he was essential to the win. Atta boy Thomas. 🙂
I forgot to mention that we switched up our rotation for the second set and that helped attribute to our win, mostly because we spread the two girls out on the court better.
Our league has this rule to where a girl must touch the ball if it is hit more than once before going over the net, which honestly, seems kinda sexist and puts some teams at a disadvantage. Mainly because first off, lets be honest, guys have a higher top potential in some sports, volleyball included BUT in the United States, there are definitely more women’s teams in High Schools around the country, and not many men leagues. SO, in turn, women around here definitely have the upper hand and men just have… height, most of the time. So, I personally feel as if there is no reason to have this rule. Also, lets just say a team of 5 girls and 1 man play versus a team of 2 girls and 4 men. Obviously the team with the more girls will have more choices when it comes to combos, because they will never have to worry about the 1 girl touches the ball rule. So, that is my opinion on that rule.
ANYWAYS, back to the games. Long story short we fell in the third set. I attribute this mainly to our poor receiving, which I don’t fully think is just a lack of athleticism or anything like that, more just more room to cover with less people. I also failed to mention that both teams only played the match with only five people. We played with a three people in front and two in back setup which offers more opportunities for attacks but it makes it harder to receive because two people have to receive pretty much every ball that is served. I also made some relatively big mistakes in the third set, such as jumping into the net one time, which gave them an automatic point. Hey, what can I say, sometimes I just get a bit too excited to try and block!
SO, final scores were,
Set 1: 16-25 LOSS
Set 2: 25-17 WIN
Set 3: 14-25 LOSS
(Give or take a few points but its pretty darn close)
Next week we have a double header (IM SO STOKED) so I will have an even longer post about how they went.
Till next time,
W.P.
Wholesome Pancake 