Sooo close! *updated*

My team was ready to fight to the death in each game. It was a double-elimination tournament. Although we lost our first match, that we had taken a set from one of the top teams in the league was a confidence booster for us underdogs. We probably shouldn't have gone to three sets in our second game--perhaps we got a bit cocky--we managed to win that game...until, of course, we met up against our own JV team in the second round of the losers' bracket.

The first set was a blow-out. Something wasn't mentally there and we lost, very quickly. The second set started out slow, but we picked up at the end and came out victorious. In the final set, we began strong by using our momentum from the previous set's victory. But being a short set capped at 17 points, we lost the set by only 3 points. We were so close!

Regardless of the ultimate result, the girls had a great time, and for a team that was shafted for gym practice time and that had less than half the number of season games than all the rest of the teams in the tournament, we fared pretty well, and definitely put up a big fight! Go JVB!

Epilogue..
A few days later, a coach from another school emailed all the athletic directors and volleyball coaches in our league, stating that

Next year I would like to ask that A**J not be allowed to enter a 'B Team' into the tournament...The B team is hard to seed and obviously very good due to the fact A**J is a big school in a small school tournament. Furthermore A**J appears to only be using the tournament as a means to build a strong varsity team as they do not attempt to win, but just play as many girls as possible. [...] If A**J does not care to play to the best of its team's ability with one team, ok, but to take up space with its 'B team' is a waste of time and very poor sportsmanship.

A note to readers that, the topic of discussion is a high school Junior Varsity volleyball league whose players are no where near the college playing level; they have just started to figure out what the game of volleyball is all about. This guy gives no credit to me and Josh who've put quite a bit of time, passion, and effort in building our JVB team. We're just good because we're a bigger school? How does that make sense? I mean, what does that say about his team, and furthermore, his coaching skills? And, apparently, giving dedicated players with a strong desire to learn the game some playing time in a tournament setting is 'poor sportsmanship' in his world. The girls love the game! What's wrong with them wanting to develop their skills for the varsity level and beyond? Arrrghhhh...

Anyway, some pictures..