Volleyball Season 3

Breast Cancer Awareness Night

Coaching volleyball has ended.  I bumped up this year and coached C1.  I was blessed with a very talented group of young ladies.  I had a variety of personalities, which included 4 sophomores and 8 freshman.  I also had a team manager, Austin, who was one of the players' friends.  He was a really nice boy and was down for anything I needed him to do.  He even practiced with the girls in many drills, which was a good challenge for the girls.  I am proud of my squad and I liked how they bonded well together.  We had some great memories and a few not so great, but those don't matter.

I taught my team to be aggressive on the courts. I was happy to hear from other coaches that my team doesn't give anything easy to opponents.  On top of teaching them game tactics and skill, my main goal is to teach them how to be a humble person and that team means together.  At our end of the year tournament, I was so happy to be showered with some gifts like a bouquet of flowers, chocolate covered macadamias, written cards of thanks, and gift cards from some of my players.  Made me feel appreciated.  My big confidence booster is when the parents gave me encouragement and thanks for coaching their daughter.

We ended with a 12-2 record in our conference and best of all we beat South, our main rivalry, twice.  I will never forget this group and I hope each of them do great things.  I wish them luck in the rest of their high school career of volleyball.

My C1 Team, so proud.

The JV coach, Rachel, had her baby towards the end of season and I stepped up to coach her team for a week.  It was my JV coaching debut and I am very happy to put those two wins in my pocket.  Only 4 of the girls on JV were girls I had coached from the past.  I mean really, the girls filter our from C team and up to varsity.  These girls were a very spunky and energetic group, sometimes I didn't know how Rachel handled all of their energy.

My coaching JV debut with former Coach Stan Afoa

The way the coaching hierarchy works is that the varsity coach has 3 assistant coaches, which are the JV and two C team coaches.  JV and C team have an end of the year tournament that closes season, but varsity continues two more weeks for Regionals and State Tournaments. This year, the format for these tournaments changed to a double elimination bracket and had an "if necessary" match to to 30 points.  Long story short, Dimond won Regions in an epic match against South and had to play the if necessary match.  Top three teams advance to State where the top teams of the other regions come together.

After 3 years of coaching, I finally helped out and chaperoned varsity out in Wasilla, where state was held.  Rachel usually helps chaperone, but she was out due to baby and only came when she could.  I was happy to do it because it was kind of a "mini-vacation" from my busy life.  We stayed at the Best Western out there and I had a blast.  We were there from Wednesday night to Saturday night.  Cory came out for the Championship match, which was great to finally see him.  Let's just say, Dimond did it again, just like in regions, took the state championship being number 1!  The if necessary match was so intense and sitting on the bench with the other coaches was just too much.  Dimond tied with South probably 12 times and then finally finished with a 30-27 final score, winning state.

I am so happy to be apart of all of this.  On Saturday, thankfully we made it that far but I had no doubts, I decided to write a letter for them for some high spirits.  I read my letter to them before the first match and I am glad I did it.  I just felt like I needed to put my 2 cents in before the we started playing on the most important day of their life.  Championship day.  Glad the girls pulled it through and totally dominated with their fire.  GO DIMOND!

The night Varsity won state :)

Slacking on the blog, but not on life

I know, it has been so long!!  I am sorry blog, but don't worry I have been rereading my blessed life through your written memories.  I promise, during Thanksgiving break I plan on writing in here and adding awesome pictures.  I will give highlights from August to now, which is a large spread, but it definitely contains great memories.  In short, life is good :)