Highline Community College, February 6, 2010

We took 1st place this weekend!!

This tournament was so rewarding for us for many reasons, but most important was that we became a true team! We had many things finally fall into place and the girls were able to see their hard work pay off. Ashlynn Leach stepped in and played solid in middle front and Raelyn Curry was consistent and aggressive at the net. We became comfortable with a new defense and practiced serving aggressive and hitting weak areas with our serves. Shelby Risner played a solid 5-1 the entire day and Shelly Pitts was amazing as our libero. Savannah Wallace became an aggressive server, Evy Elting continued to put up a strong block and run a slide hit that was tough to defend. Avery Dyer was an animal at the net with her hitting and attacks anything that comes her way. Emma Booth was rock solid in the back row and made some outstanding defensive plays. Britzy Hockett was awesome on serve receive and served some tough to handle serves as well. It was an outstanding team performance!

We started the day playing South End Juniors and with the strong serving of Shelly Pitts and great passing in the front row by Evy Elting we won the first game. The next game Britzy Hockett provided strong densive play and Shelby Risner's serving and setting were excellent. We finished our first match with scores of 25-15 & 25-14.

We faced Jammin next and handled them quickly with some amazing serves. Averi Dyer was unstoppable in both games and Shelly Pitts was quick and accurate as our libero. Emma Booth had solid passing and Ashlynn Leach began to gain confidence at the net as well. We won this match with scores of 25-10 & 25-7.

Our aggressive serving continued in our next match against UPVBC. Evy Elting and Ashlynn Leach were great at the net and Savannah Wallace led us with her serving. We won both games with scores of 25-10 & 25-1.

Kylie Smith returned to our line-up going into bracket play. We were ranked first and faced Olympia in our semifinal match. We did not go out and serve aggressively and let some free balls drop on our side. In addition, we didn't communicate as well as we had earlier in the day. We struggled the first game but pulled through with the win. In the next game, Averi Dyer's serving and passing and Evy Elting's aggressive net play led the way to a strong finish. We won our match with scores of 25-22 & 25-12.

We were excited to play in the championship game and came out fired up and ready to work together. We did what we had done all day and served aggressively. With our aggressive serves, we were able to get lots of freeballs back which enabled us to run our offense off some strong passes and outstanding sets. Raelyn Curry had some amazing hits and was very aggressive at the net. Kylie worked hard on defense and had some important plays for us.

This group of girls is truly amazing to work with! They communicate and work together and have a “team first” attitude. They work hard at practice and are growing each and every time they step on the court.

We miss Brielle who is out with mono and can’t wait for her to get better and return to our team!