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Duel Volleyball Camps & Tournaments

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Coaching Trio forms Volleyball Camp

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.

state tournament

the lady lynx volleyball team is a 2 seed at state. we are playing joy christian at apache junction high school on friday nov. 6 at 11am, if we win...which i think we can, we play at 5pm.

see the brackets here.

state

ill start with a little history. four years ago i took over a volleyball team that had won one game in its previous two seasons. i remember my first day of practice like it was yesterday, and it wasn't pretty. however i promised what we lacked in skill we would make up in hustle...we went 15-9 that season, missing the playoffs my one match. we lost to a team that i felt didn't deserve to be on the same court as us, they proved me wrong, they kept the ball in play and we didn't.

in 2007 we went 19-6, however one of those losses was to a team we beat twice earlier in the season giving us a 3 seed at regionals instead of a 2 seed. we lost, denying us a trip to state. of course i am convinced if we had a 2 seed, we would have won.

2008 was bound to be our year, in '06 i set a goal to be in the state championship game in 2009, therefore in '08 we not only needed to be a lock at state, we should win our first game. we were doing what we needed, we went 20-5, yet our schedule lacked toughness and again i felt we gave a game away we should have won. this gave us a 2 seed at regionals, leaving us to play a good team we had lost to twice already that season. my girls played tough at regionals, we went the full five games and lost 13-15, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and another trip to state denied.

its 2009, i am returning my top 7 players, all of my starters. this year was supposed to be a breeze, a one seed at state, certainly nothing short of a 2 seed.

in spite of my optimism, this season has seen its share of adversity. rolled ankles, an athlete being asked to step down due to failing grades, never seeming to have a full team at practice, a two game slump in which you wouldn't believe that it was the academy of tucson volleyball team. all this in a year the aia 1a south moved to power points that did away with regionals all together, making your regular season the playoffs. on top of that we lost 14-16 in game 5 to a team that went to the state semi-finals last year. winning that game could have potentially given us a one seed at state.

with all that, we won a game tonight against an average team that guaranteed us a spot at the state championship tournament in two weeks. this accomplishes the second of two goals our team set this year, a 3.7gpa and making state.

of course as coach always says, "once you have accomplished your goal it's time to set a new one."

a "year" in review

my life as a teacher moves in peaks and contractions as far as busyness. this last year seemed to be one long peak.

i just got back from our graduation marking the end of an eventful year (sidenote, tim bee was the keynote speaker and was very good). the following are some of what filled up the last nine months of my life:

• my first year teaching high school and prepping for three different classes
• coaching two different volleyball teams
• the birth of my son in august
• joining the elder board at my church which we planted in september
• staff sponsored a christian club at academy
  
• took over running small groups along with my wife in april (sign up here).
  

overall i would say a very difficult but successful year. i made it through teaching five classes five days a week, focusing most of my energy there in planning (about three hours a day), unfortunately this left very little energy for the actual students, maybe the one thing i will regret most about my teaching year. my varsity volleyball team went 20-5-1, missing state by two points in game five of regionals, something i believe may have turned out differently if i could have mustered more energy in that area of my life during the fall.

taking care of my son was maybe the most tiring part of my year but also most rewarding. he has yet to know what it is to sleep through the night.

being on board at revolution has been amazing over this last year, planting a church in september with twenty-some people after an extremely difficult period and watching it flourish into an authentic community that broke 100 in april has been truly rewarding.

with all that said, i laugh when people say, "it must be nice having the summer off". its true, it is nice having the summers off after squeezing 12 months of work into nine and only getting paid for nine. it is nice having summers off until you realize your salary only covers nine month and you need to work over your "vacation". it is nice to have summers off because if i choose i can take a breath, and with that breath this is what i hope to accomplish.

• a quiet time in the bible five days a week
  
• read at least six book
• finish painting the guest room that has been left undone for the last two years
• spend quality time with my son
• revamp my geography class
• be as prepared as i possibly can to take my volleyball team to state and lord-willing win some games
• coach somewhere between 4-9 camps
• take two weeks of real vacation with the family in michigan
  

i learned this year that i hit a max. i learned i want to be great at a few things, my relationship God, my family, my teaching, my coaching and my church leadership. i know five things is pushing it, but i consider myself a high-capacity person. i want to be a person that can be counted on and relied upon to do these things well.

5...4...3...

sorry, i have been a little off my game. volleyball playoffs were this weekend, we needed to beat a team that beat us twice this season to go to state. a match is 3 out of five and we lost by two points in the 5th game. i defiantly felt like i let my team down, it was hard having the energy necessary with everything else going on in my life.

i love coaching, they are an amazing group of girls. here are some highlights from the season:

- winning the ASDB tournament
- when a ref. asked shannon is she touched the ball and she said, "yes", awarding the other team with a point
- the way the seniors played on senior night
- beating greenfields (one of our rivals) the last game of the regular season
- finishing with a 20-5-1 record

despite the finish, it was truly a great season

-back to politics-

why would colin powell endorse barak obama?

'tis the season

if you were wondering why i haven't posted. i spent 90 hours in they gym over the last two weeks with johnny and angie rocking out those camps.

volleyball officially started this week, not to mention my new job at the high school in which i get to prep for three different classes...isn't that awesome? yet somehow, as much as i love to teach it is always trumped by volleyball season.

see, i have three passions in life: my faith, my family and my coaching (i also consider teaching a form of coaching). those three always seem to erupt in the fall, this season is no exception... maybe my biggest eruption yet.

a new job, a new family member, a team that has grown from 15 when i took over to 27 this season and the possibility of a new role at church?

what do you do when your passions grow so big it seems they could consume you? is that bad?

of course i think i can handle anything but my wife sure doesn't appreciate it when i get home from work and fall asleep on the couch before dinner even starts...or worse yet get home after she has already gone to bed, this is beginning to sound like my first year of marriage, up at 5:30 am home by 11:00 pm.