      I was simply blown away the other day. We held tryouts for the Vipers team I help with and for the 15U girls there were a total of 28 young kids interested in a chance to play. The older team, the 18U, had a total of 19 girls show up.
           The younger group showed up from as far away as Midale, while some of the older group showed up from Midale, Whitewood, and Montmartre. Which are fair drives, but when I played in Swift it was an hour from my farm, so I guess it's comparable. It just seems like such a far drive now.
           Personally I'm really excited for them to get practicing and see how they will fare this season.
           There will be extremely strong players on each team and I think they will do well this year.
           Practices will start very soon and then tournaments will begin in the new year!
           It's going to be a lot of volleyball as I've agreed to help with both the age groups, which will end up being about eight hours of practice each week between the two and quite a few weekends for tournaments, but it's well worth it.
           The girls that were there all enjoy the game and want to get better, and I wish we could have taken everyone but when only six can play on the court if you take too many they end up sitting too much, while also missing out on repetitions in practice. The more girls you have, the less time a coach can spend on each one.
           Although the skills are important and winning is nice, both teams will be about doing each of their personal best because win or lose as long as you can say you fought hard, it was a good game.
           Someone once told me about their daughter's game and described it as one that you knew was lost from the start I honestly answered ‘I've never been in that situation.’ It's not that I've been on amazing teams or anything, mid of the pack usually, but I've never been in a situation where it had felt hopeless. There was always a chance the other team wouldn't play their best and that everything would click for us.
           Maybe we could go on a serving run or block the other team, maybe they've got poor mental toughness and would get upset if they started to lose to a lower-ranked team. There's always a chance of hope and hanging onto that while playing your personal best is important.
           I remember playing I wouldn't even look at the score. There was so much going on, on the court as I had to call a play for my team being the setter, then I had to identify where the setter on the other side was, could she jump or was she back row? And by the time that happened the whistle had gone for the serve to come.
We fought and did our best, if we won the point, great, if we lost the point, shake it off and get the next one. The past points were unimportant and I think for some, looking at the score likely added pressure to their performance. Some may thrive on pressure but others cave, so being level and focusing on the next one coming is better than worrying about being down by two with the other team able to win in one point.
We once lost to a team 25 to 10, I think it was, and it didn't matter. The whistle blew and as people were walking to the back of the court I realized the game was over, glanced at the score, and even that huge of a loss was alright. We put up a fight. They were one of the top three teams in the province and we sat around 15th, but we didn't just roll over for them.
We fought for every single point, we rallied with, dug difficult hits and put down our own with authority; but, they did have an edge on us. However, I never once thought it was already lost. It was going to be a battle if we wanted to win, but it was possible.
In fact the next set was tighter, 25-18, for them, but still we lost considerable and came back to fight harder.
And that's what I hope these girls will come to understand because I'm sure many of them are looking for the win. The win is nice, it's always nice, but losing with dignity, knowing that you've done your absolute best, that's what they should come to understand is the most important thing. Winning is the cherry on top of hard work and dedication, but the cherry isn't the most important part of an ice cream sundae.
