High School Volleyball

Abigail had a tough decision to make this year as both soccer and volleyball are the same season at the high school level.  It actually wasn’t that hard of a decision for her – volleyball has become her sport of choice, but it was hard to see all those years playing soccer come to an end, especially with as good as she is.

Tryouts for volleyball were held at the end of August and were a major pain in the butt as they conflicted with several of our end of the summer plans.  She was thrilled to make the JV team.  Many of her peers have been playing club and Abigail’s only experience has been playing the short season through the middle school in 7th and 8th grade so the fact that she can still play at the same level as the clubbers really is impressive.  There weren’t any freshman on the varsity team this year.

 Abigail is the tallest on her team, except that 6’ 7’ freshman in the middle (yikes!)

The Saturday after teams were selected all the high school players had team building activities at a ropes course in Bellevue. Abigail knew several girls her age from Chief Kanim, but there were many girls from Twin Fall Middle School and all the sophomores, juniors, and seniors to get to know.  She was thrilled to have her bestie Megan on the JV team with her.

Practices were every day from 3:30-6:30pm (including Fridays!)  She had a great season, improved a lot, and started in most games – by the end of the season she was often on the top of her team practice board – apparently the girls get points during practices for each kill, ace, dig, etc… 

Her games were always at 5:30pm so I wasn’t able to make as many of her games as I would have liked due the other kids schedules.  I was disappointed to find out that you have to pay for each person you take to the games – including little kids.  So for me to take the kids with me I’d be forking out $35 each time.  For one game I dropped the kids off at a nearby park with Carly and went in on my own to save the money.  I’d sure love to have the whole family be able to support her without having to pay hundreds of dollars – on top of the $200 participation fee, game day shirts, practice jerseys, etc…  Ok, rant over.

I love how supportive the team is of each other.  They seem to always be giving high fives after each play, even if that person totally messes up.  You can’t really get too hard on yourself when your teammates are encouraging you along.

Megan and Abigail are often mistaken for each other.  They’ve been close friends since third grade and are so alike in many, many ways. I often say Megan is the twin I always wanted.  They play very similar positions on the court so it’s not very often they are both on the court playing side by side.  That’s Megan and Abigail up at the net together.

Justin was able to catch a few of Abigail’s games after his busy season wrapped up on Oct 15.  He got this video of her serving the winning point in the three game set against Woodinville.

I don’t have many pictures of the season – a reminder that I need to get me a good zoom lens for sports.

Abigail’s last game of the season was October 26.  Season record: 4-3 league, 9-5 overall – Not the best record, but the majority of our JV team are freshman so matched up against other schools upperclassman that actually isn’t too shabby.  It was so nice to have her come straight home from school on the 27th – a first since school started two months ago.

So now the big question is whether Abigail should tryout for a club team next month.  (She’s sadly decided not to play basketball in high school – a major bummer cause once again the girl’s got skills!)  Club volleyball is a major time commitment and an even more major expense.  We’ve haven’t played any sports on Sunday up to this point and plan to keep it that way.  Many tryouts are on Sundays, some practices are on Sunday, and tournaments often include Sunday play. Hard stuff all the way around.  Lots of pressure from coaches to play off season as well – which totally makes sense.  The more practice the girls get the better they will become.  We’d love to give our kids the opportunities to excel and grow in their interests, but there are certainly factors that make that difficult to do.  Regardless of what comes next for this girl we are sure proud of all she is able to accomplish.  She continues to amaze us!