Club Volleyball 2016 Edition

Your point is well-taken, Starman, but I checked it out and everything they did/said lined up. If she'd had a bad night, and if her symptoms had transitioned in a certain direction, it would have been off to the ortho for an MRI this morning, which would have been right in line with doctors' recommendations. But she didn't. She has the classic moderate high ankle sprain. If you tape it properly, you really can't hurt it any worse, and there's no way to tape it such that you can play when you shouldn't.

I was awfully proud of her for how brave a face she put on while her teammates played so well (they won all three matches without dropping a set) today. I'm pretty sure their struggles with her out yesterday put them in a much-lower follow-up pool today, because the teams they played today simply weren't all that good. But once we got on the road she started sobbing.

 

The things they're doing with tape these days are amazing. On one of my daughter's club volleyball teams, one of the dads was a chiropractor. He brought a folding exam table to the matches. My kid twisted her knee. She was the setter, the only one we had. She limped through the end of that match. During a break, the guy examined her and taped her. She felt no pain at all and finished the rest of the day. You see these players with long strips of tape on their shoulders or hips or knees or ankles and you wonder how it can possibly work. But it does.

 

Trainer said no-go today ... Didn't even bother with tape. Have already played my Sonic hot fudge milkshake card ... The old quiver's looking a might light on arrows these days ...

 

Maybe it's because the Starrville Spikers have done a particualarly horrible job of building any kind of collective team concept the last couple of seasons.

Teams are selected with no thought whatsoever to geographical location, school affiliation (other than two kids from the same HS), or even league connections; the team roster is radically re-shuffled 1/3 of the way into the season, getting rid of several players and bringing in a few new ones. There was no thought given to car pooling or any other off-court connections. There was one team party arranged at midseason; 4 of the 9 players showed up. The girls all seem pleasant enough (well all but a couple) but nobody is really becoming "friends."

In any case, the idea of Sis-14 shedding any tears after a tournament, unless maybe she faulted a dozen times in a row on her serve, is pretty much unimaginable. You win, you win; you lose, you lose. That all depends on what kind of brackets the tournament organizers set up. If you hit the ball well and made few unforced errors, you're golden.

Sis-14 is actually looking forward to high school team camp in July when she'll have to get used to caring how the team does again.

 

StarSis dragged the brood back from Indiana Sunday afternoon. Tuesday. Sis-14 was pulled back down to JV softball, as it was agreed last week she would be, and went 5-for-8 in a doubleheader, with one of the outs a line shot snared with a diving catch.

So Sis (mom) and Sis-14 have made a priority change for the rest of the school softball season: if softball and volleyball conflict on the same day, softball wins.

At the same time Sis-14's JVs were losing two offensive slug fests, the varsity was getting blanked twice. The JV coach told Sis she expects S14 to be called back up soon, and probably for good.

If that happens, S14 is done with club volleyball.

 

Sounds like Sis (mom) and dad are getting a raise!

 

Well, the team fee for volleyball was already paid through early June, and they'd be writing a couple hundred bucks of that off if she quit, but this weekend's road trip cost $400-500 and they have like 2-3 of those left, so if she quits they'll more than recoup that in travel savings.

But the objective of all this folderol is to prepare her better to make varsity teams, and it isn't real clear playing 3-4 more weeks of club volleyball is going to be very useful in that.

So if she gets moved up to varsity softball (more or less for good), she'd switch her emphasis to 100% softball for the time being (until the midsummer volleyball team camps fire up in July).


Another option, if she gets moved up to varsity softball, would be to really big-time the volleyball club: tell the coach S14 will show up for (maybe) one of the two weekly practices and MIGHT play in tournaments if there is no softball conflict (which there probably would be; all the club volleyball tourneys are weekends and the varsity softball team has 2-3 Saturday tourneys).

Under such circumstances S14 could neither expect nor demand much playing time, but she'd be doing it just to keep her hand in on volleyball. Under such circumstances I'd guess the club coach would probably say, "forget it," and that would be OK.

Somewhat unusually, this club has no direct connection or affiliation with the Starrville HS varsity coach, so quitting the Starrville Spikers is not going to sink S14's chances to make varsity when practices start in August.

 

Closing out this year's edition: DaughterQuant went to an orthopedist (ankle specialist) today and was given a good long-term report but a bummer of a short-term one. She's been bopping around more and more limp-free as the week has gone on, leaving her and MommaQuant and me wondering whether playing in next weekend's season finale might be a possibility. The doctor put the kibosh on that fairly quickly. He'd mashed around on her leg, finding several really painful spots, then began talking through his recommendations for the short term. When we asked about playing, he said "Well, let's see. Jump up and down on that one leg 40 times." DaughterQuant was, of course, absolutely not inclined to even try. When you can do that, he said, then you can play. He seems to think about four weeks, but an MRI scheduled for early next week will help nail it down. Pretty sure she'll be totally good to go when school tryouts start, and she'll probably get to play in an abbreviated summer league at her club.

 

Get to the good stuff, dq. Is Maria going to be sitting in a chair on the balcony?

 

No she's good to go on that front. I'm relieved that I don't have to agonize about that next weekend. Shit, I'm flying in half the Western Hemisphere ... she better sing.

But MommaQuant and I are still seriously bummed ... You never know when you've seen your kid do some such thing the last time. Maybe she won't make the freshman team. Maybe she'll give up volleyball for musicals and such.

I know it's a cliche, but enjoy it while you can ... No matter how long it lasts, it'll be over too soon.

 

Kind of a threadjack, but wasn't sure if it should be its own thread -- Will NCAA sand volleyball survive/thrive?

 

With S15 now on the cusp of bailing out of club volleyball, StarSis and hubby now face the scheduling hell of a kid trying to pursue multiple sports in high school.

The plan had been she was only going to play volleyball: varsity team from August-November, then club ball in two segments (Dec-Mar and Apr-June).

But now with softball in the picture, she'll be playing school softball from March to mid-may, then they have a summer city league team that plays in June-July. (Actually she probably needs the offseason experience more in softball.)

Happily, she's not enough of a superstar in either sport that getting the mythical college scholarship is even on the radar screen.

To keep things lively, the twins coming up are real good in all three sports. How anybody pulls that off in high school these days, I can't even imagine.