My Kid's Volleyball, Fall 2016 Edition

Bit of an update on how the fall season has (so far) unfolded:

DaughterQuant is a middle on the freshman A-team, which consists of 14 girls (only four of whom came in from DaughterQuant's 8th-grade team; the rest came from that team her 8th-grade team beat in the city finals last fall). She seems to be the third middle, but I think that's partly because right now they can (and do) use the middle as an additional hitter, and she doesn't have the power of the girl who's slightly ahead of her. When she wants to hit it hard, she can, but she's kind of like a baseball player with some power who's unwilling to risk the strikeout. She hardly ever misses, but she's starting to get to the level where just getting it back (and well-placed) ain't enough. The girl who's slightly ahead of her hits the shit out of it, but right now she has no control. This girl gets two kills a match but then bounces it off the back wall (10 feet up) and then begins to dink rather than hit.

DaughterQuant's team is good, though. A couple of weeks ago her school hosted a freshman tournament and a JV tournament. To make the brackets work in the JV tournament, the coaches peeled off maybe eight girls from DaughterQuant's team and created an ad hoc JV team ... which then marched through that tournament undefeated (didn't lose a set even when playing the school's official JV team in the finals). DaughterQuant's team, the "left-behinds" anchored by her and a couple of the regular A-team hitters, lost 25-23 in the third set of the championship match of their tournament. She had a blast, playing almost the whole time, and they were coached by her school's varsity coach. That coach has to like what's on the horizon talent-/skill-wise.

DaughterQuant's team is, at present, 21-3 (and that's if you include that tournament loss I mentioned and you don't include the matches won in that JV tournament). They drubbed her high school's No. 1 arch-rival on Tuesday night and will play No. 2 arch-rival tonight (and I think they'll win this one handily as well).

DaughterQuant sprained that left ankle again a couple of weeks ago, but this was a regular (rather than "high") sprain. Other than the match in which she got hurt (on the second point, naturally), she hasn't missed any appreciable time. She goes in early every morning to the trainers, and they have her doing physical therapy (and they tape her up before practice/matches). Given the position she plays, I suspect ankle sprains are going to be a fixture in our household for awhile.

One thing DaughterQuant is having to adjust to is that with her team being so good, she's simply not a/the key player. Truth be told, there probably isn't a key player on her team. They play at such a relatively high level that they've already begun to have very clear (and specialized) roles. MommaQuant and I have warned her that, if she keeps playing, this is going to continue -- she's going to have a particular thing to do and that's it; other things/roles will be the responsibility of other people. That kid's driven, though. I don't know where she gets it ('cause neither I nor MommaQuant was ever like that).

 

Team DaughterQuant came damn close to actually losing a set last night. The team they ultimately beat -- 25-20, 26-24 -- hadn't played them all that close in the earlier match (at Team DQ's house), but last night Team DQ was way out of sync. For starters, their libero was home sick. To make matters worse, the bus was way the hell late, and they didn't get much of a warm-up before it was time to play.

Was a crazy night for DaughterQuant. In addition to volleyball, she's got her singing and her violin. She's pretty damn good at both, but to accommodate volleyball schedule-wise she had to be on the second-tier freshman orchestra. The good news about that second-tier spot is that she's first-chair first violin, so she's concertmaster when they're in concert. The bad news is that last night was their fall concert. Her orchestra director told her that all she had to do was be there by 7 p.m., and if that meant sprinting on the stage in her volleyball sweats, that would be OK. With the bus being late to her match, however, and the match being far closer than we'd anticipated, she had to peel out about two-thirds of the way through the second set. She changed into her dress in the back of the mini-van en route, then dashed into the auditorium with five minutes to spare.

 

Are you sure that was your daughter and not the end of American Pie?

 

Never saw it ... and from the tone of your post, I suspect I need to keep that on the "watch when hell freezes over" list ...

 

Multiple freshmen volleyball teams and orchestras?!? How big of a high school is this? Is this common? My (public) high school was probably unusually small--about 500 students total--but this sounds huge.

 

Around 3300 students.

 

Two matches to go this season. DaughterQuant's team has dropped only one set in district play. Against freshman teams from two Top 10 (national rankings of varsity) schools, they've won one and lost one. They're good. Tonight, they're visiting their No. 1 arch-rival. Tuesday, they'll play host to their No. 2 arch-rival. They've already beaten both handily, but these are the last matches of the season for the freshman team.

DaughterQuant dove during practice today and bopped her head on the floor. Concussion protocol dictates that she can't even go to tonight's match and likely won't play on Tuesday. Helluva bummer of an end to the season.

Club positionals start in two weeks. DaughterQuant's team will be in Minneapolis in April (any sj.com-ers with travel tips?).