Monument City Classic Jan 28-29, 2006
Diary Page
The more of ourselves that we sacrifice for our team, the more glory our team will give back to us.
Last updated:  04/12/2012 10:18 AM

Coach Houser's Diary of the Tournament

Friday Night
I've arrived at the hotel!  Lindsey & Jenny are also here.
NICE PLACE!!!!!  No micro or frig in the room, but it's nice!
Free b'fast tomorrow 6am to 10am, free fruit, coffee & snack 24 hours a day.
I'm glad that we're back here again on Feb 10th.
For more info about the hotel, touch here and scroll down.
Our first pool tomorrow is a 11am.  We play MVSA Starz (Northern Virginia),
and UVC 16 Crush (Matthews, NC).  Then we play 2 more teams at 5pm.
I'll try to post here on Saturday night regarding how we're doing.
You may be results faster by going to the Monument website and seeing if the results are updated. 
I imagine the directors will post the results soon after each match is completed............but I'm not sure.

Saturday Night
We had a great day.............I can't remember it all!
We played Metro Virginia and won 2-0.  Then we played UVC and won 2-0.
After a wonderful lunch break, we played Mason Dixon and won 2-0.
Our final match of the day (7pm) was against RVC 16-Z.........they have pounding OH's and good servers and were able to beat them 25-18, 25-22. 
What else...........we saw Megan Hodge, the National Player of the Year from Durham NC.
We watch a lot of our 18N team play.  They finished the day 5-1!  GREAT JOB!! They begin playoffs tomorrow at 11am.  The 18R team also starts playoffs tomorrow at 11am, but I don't know how they've been doing.
Our 16N team is 4-0 and hasn't dropped a game.  CONGRATS TO THEM!!

Have made some great plays, had some awesome hits and digs, and are having a great time!
Our serving and serve receive is strong. 
What's so cool..........if we make a mistake or if our opponent pounds a ball by us, we shake off and we play the next point.  GREAT JOB GIRLS!!!  I'm proud of you. 
Hey, it's 11:15.  Good night!  Will type some tomorrow! 

Monday Diary
Wow. What a great day we had on Sunday!
How much FUN!!!
I remember that first match against NVVA Fauquier........the opposing coach was knocked unconscious by a ball from another court that hit him in the temple.  Whoa.  We won the match, which put us at 5-0!
But that was nothing compared to the next match!  We won the first game 25-20.........no wait, we didn't.  The down ref made a call on game point that the up ref didn't see.  So there was a protest.  It was upheld.  So we go back on the court with the score 24-21!  They score two points. We call a timeout, then score a point.........SHEW!!!  We lost the 2nd game, but Shannon sees overlaps in their serve receive.  Then she sees another.  And another.  The up ref won't get involved b/c it's the down ref's call........but she's a teenager and doesn't understand it all.  So after losing our first game, we win the 3rd game 15-12.  Now we're 6-0.  There were only three 6-0 teams entering playoffs.  We were ready to see two of them.

PLAYOFFS:
Our first match was against Fusion.  We beat them 2 straight.  We lost a little focus during the 2nd game..........but took care of business. 
Then we watched out next opponent.......Triangle 16's.  They were pretty good, but we thought we could play with them.  There was delay, so we went to watch Megan Hodge some more, then after we were paged haha, the match started.  Triangle came out like beasts, getting a quick 9-2 lead.  But with an unbelievable play from MacKenzie (the serve receive that dribbled over and fell!!!), we began to come back.  With our MB's blocking and with our OH's hitting, and with our serve receive sharp, we won 25-21 and 25-13!  WE'RE IN THE FINALS!!!
Our final match against the Charlotte 16N team was out first loss of the tournament.  But after losing 9-25, we got a 13-8 lead and make them call a timeout.  Even though they were much taller than us, we kept on hitting and passing and digging.  We lost 20-25, but were so proud of our effort. 
GREAT JOB!!!!

TEAM MEMBERS MEMORIES: 

#11 Jessica:
I don't think we could have asked for a better 1st tournament weekend!  I love how we worked together and everybody contributed!  Ha ha  I'm really glad that we decided to be "intense" because i think it really paid off.   We had some amazing  offensive and defensive plays, but i think the most important part was us bonding and becoming more comfortable with
game situations, so that we'll be closer for tournaments to come.  Who's excited!?!?!?
#14 Lindsey:
This weekend went really well for our first tournament. The team really came together, and just like a lot of people there i felt like we had already played in many tournaments together. Its obvious that practice pays off. One thing i was really impressed with was how our team never gave up. No matter how far behind in points we were we played till the end and that's something that's really gonna help us pull through in a lot of games later on this season. You can definitely tell that our middles are getting better each and every time we play just like our serve receive and digging. I was really impressed on how we only had a few balls fall between players.  Off the court was also a lot of fun this weekend. I feel like everyone bonded well. I cant believe that ive gotten the chance to be play on two teams in a row that get along so well.  It was great that Shannon and Joanna got to go this weekend. It was really cool getting to know Shannon on the way to the tournament and back and getting to hear all of the interesting stories about coach houser :p. And of course theres never a dull moment with miss Joanna. I really couldnt have asked for a better first tournament..... well a gold medal is always nice.... but im sure we'll get those soon!

#21 Eva:
This weekend was such a good bonding time! all the girls got a lot closer and we it showed on the court :-) we did so awesome! who woulda thought our first tourney (playing up) we would have come in second!! it was
awesome! that re-do of the under-the-net call was pretty intense, but of course, we pulled through and won which rocked! there were a lot of AMAZING defensive and offensive plays that took place which really got noticed - everyone did awesome and our season is gonna be soooo sweeet!!