i love this game

if you haven't been keeping up with my blog, my volleyball team made it to the state tournament for the first time in school history. what an experience.

we won our first match 3-0, the girls played solid and it sent us to the quarter finals.

our quarter finals match was against joseph city. now, if there are any teams that make it to state that lack quality, they are quickly weeded out in the first round. joseph city is a little town (mormon...i'm assuming) a few miles east of flagstaff. they have won the womens volleyball state championship a number of times, most recently in 2006.

set one - refs killed us (23-25), i really really try not to blame refs...but come on!

set two - we killed ourselves (14-25), too many errors against a phenomenal team

set three - joe city killed us (23-25), we played our hearts out and just got beat

going to state and winning our first game was an amazing experience, giving joe city a heck of a game was an amazing experience. however i am not certain these were the highlights of the trip.

see we have these cross-town rivals, greenfields, they are an very tough, very well coached team and have essentially become our rivals due to the intensity of every match played over the years...always great volleyball. well, they made state as well and came early to cheer us on against joe city. we decided to return the favor as they played their quarter final match following ours. our girls went absolutely nuts! it was sooo much fun cheering so hard for a team that we have had to sweat blood over to beat.

i have put a lot of pressure on myself and my team to make state, especially this year, so much so that there were moments that i may have lost focus of why i coach this sport.

cheering like crazy for our rivals put my love for this sport and for coaching back into perspective...what a night.

see results here.