Volleyball Semifinals

Our volleyball playoffs started last night and I was very fired up to go. We came is as the heavy favorite being the number one seed and a long distance from the second place team. We would start with the number 4 team, and if we won the best of 5 series we would face either the 2 or 3 seed next week.

I arrived a bit early, and had plenty of time to warm up for the game. We played with 7 people again, one of our players has been hurt and has not come in a month or so, but it works out just fine having one less player to rotate out. We started out pretty tight, I could tell right away that everyone was a bit nervous and feeling the pressure. It was definitely a case of playing tentatively and trying not to lose instead of attacking and playing our game. Midway through the first game we were down by five or so but we had started to relax and play a bit better. I also have to give the other team credit, they came out fired up and ready to go. As we got a bit relaxed and started to play more aggressive we came back, but it wasn't enough as we lost the first game in a tight 25-22 contest. 0-1

We talked a bit going into the second game about staying aggressive and forcing the other team into mistakes instead of being tentative and it seemed to work. We started a bit slowly again, and fell behind early, but we could feel the momentum shifting as we were playing well, but getting a couple bad bounces. We went on a quick run to pull even at 13 but then fell behind again as the other team got some nice serves in. Once again we battled back and started hitting some tough spikes to keep them off balance. I managed to get a couple blocks and was playing pretty well as we pulled ahead for good and took the second game, again by a close score of around 25-22. 1-1

The third game felt very key, we knew if we took it that it would really hurt the other teams confidence and momentum. We could see a bit of frustration on their part and we had gotten quite a bit more comfortable. We simply needed to continue our game plan of staying aggressive. We came out strong, but they battled back and we fell behind again in the mid teens. It seemed like we were behind the whole game, but it never felt too bad because we were playing well. We pulled ahead towards the end and took the third game a little more comfortably. 2-1

We really wanted to end the match now, the final game would only be to 15 points if needed and it would be much more of a crap shoot. Fortunately we had gotten our rhythm and the other team was much more frustrated. Personally I was playing very well, and the rest of the team stayed strong also as we won pretty comfortably to take the match 3-1

I didn't get to watch much of the next match as I ended up playing racquetball with a teammate, but it sounded like it was a good match between my brother and uncle's team and the team with my other cousin on it. It went to the fifth and deciding game before my cousin Jon's team took the match and the right to face us next week in the finals. I'm looking forward to a good match, hopefully we can start off a little better!