Oregon MLK Tournament January 19-21st
OJVA’s 16 Gold
team tied for 5th place at the Oregon MLK tournament this weekend at the
University of Oregon. It was a three day
tournament with 72 teams. Day one, we
played at the Matthew Knight Arena.
There were only two courts set up there,
so it didnt have that big tournament feel. We finished seconded in pool on the first
day. We beat both Washington Volleyball
Academy and Boss (the only team from our region in our pool) playing very well against both teams. The last team we played in our pool was Puget
Sound. They were the best team we have
played against this year. The girls
played with a lot of emotion and intensity, but were very tight. This really showed itself in our ball
handling and communication, in
particular in our serve receive. We
ended up losing in two sets, 17-25 and
19-25. Everyone was disappointed, but we had to regroup to come back for day
two.
We were seeded
second in our pool on Sunday, and played
two very solid matches against Rimrock and DSK.
I was proud of how the girls rebounded from the loss the day before to
come out strong in the first two matches.
The last match of the day was against a very talented Kent Jrs.
team. This was our best, and most
exciting match of the tournament. We
lost a very tight first set 23-25. Then
we got down right away in set two 2-10.
After a time out where we talked about staying relaxed and disciplined
and how we needed each other, we made a
great run to come back and win the set in an exciting 28-26 score! Our serving was tough and took Kent Jrs
completely out of their game. The third
game saw us coming out strong and confident and dominating the game, winning
15-5! So much fun, and it showed such
great character and teamwork. I was
super proud of the mental switch the girls made after falling so far behind in
game two. They could have let it just
continue and fall completely apart, but instead they battled back together. Good job girls!
Winning the pool
put us in the Gold Bracket for bracket play on Monday. We played Excell NW 16-1.
We lost the match 18-25, 18-25,
and just never got out rhythm.
The effort was definitely there as the girls played hard, but the teamwork and trust and discipline
started breaking down. I think day three
was a good learning lesson for us. The third day of a tournament is hard, and discipline and technique start to break
down as you get tired. It’s a mental
challenge to fight through this in a positive way and to stay together as a
team when things are not going well, either for yourself or your team.
Overall, the good moments outweighed the bad, it was
just hard ending on a loss where we didn’t feel like we competed well. But we did some really good things over the
weekend and showed improvement both individually and as a team. Hopefully its motivation to work more
mindfully when we get back into the gym, as we will be seeing many of these
teams at the next Power League in the Platinum Division.
