The afternoon pool provided much tougher competition as the scores reflected, although we did have a very well-fought game against Athena. Our serve receive suffered in the matches against Olympia and Banks.

Recognition goes out to Daryl Neu for having an outstanding day. She racked up a number of key blocks, served 86% and had top honors with the best passing average(2.26). Denali Preston passed 1/3 of all the team's passes and came away with an impressive 2.0 average, she also provided a number of saves to keep the ball in play; Katie Wells covered the court well on defense and had the best serving percentage (89%); Talia Hamer lead the team's stats in ace serves (9) and connected with Daryl for a couple of 1's; Becky Nein opened up our offense by setting many back sets to keep the opponents guessing; Sam Watkins stepped up her game with good passing, serving and hitting; Mira Hobson provided strong serving and added good blocking.

This team is to be commended for its ability to stay positive and maintain good attitudes. We are looking forward to moving up in the ranks for the next Power League. GO BIG RED

Taylor deserves recognition for learning to play left back during the tourney in Ashley's absence; by the end of the day she was doing a great job of quickly getting into proper defensive position; Becky, who communicates very well on the court, tallied up an impressive 93% serving percentage while also working hard at setting; Stormi's positive attitude and good ball handling was helpful to the team's efforts; Daryl made a number of great blocks, target passes and digs that contributed to successful plays throughout the day - she also improved her attack approach; one of our setters, Alisha compiled one of our better serving percentages (85%) which was greatly needed as we played tough teams; Mira has terrific hops at middle front which helped to intimidate our opponents, and she consistently passes well; Katie executed many digs and saves; Talia's setting for our outside hitter improved and she served 84%, including 6 aces; Denali provided the spark we needed with her excellent all-around playing and hustle, also serving 82% with 6 aces; Samantha is continuing to improve her role and didn't miss a beat when it was her time to sub in.

The team did a good job of transitioning from Base to Covering the hitters to Offense and executed many pass/set/hit combos which turned into credits against sets of lines at practice!

In bracket play we started out slowly in our match against Oregon Sun and couldn't quite manage to put it all together which ended our playing for the day, but we did manage to come up with some good team cheers.

Katie Wells served the opponent's off the court and also did a nice job on defense at Middle Back; Daryl Neu gave us a taste of her strong blocking and offense at Middle while also serving very well; even though Ashley Gilman's just learning the game, her passing and serving was impressive and she's improving quickly - it will be fun to watch her become even better as the season progresses; Alisha Bruce-Theiry was one of the serving leaders and contributed with her setting and play at right front; at Outside Hitter, Denali Preston's leadership and all-out play were vital to the team's success - Denali is an outstanding player with a positive, hard-working attitude; Stormi Grendahl made a series of good saves at Middle Front to keep the ball in play when we really needed it - she will be an asset to the team as the season moves on; Samantha Watkins and Taylor Beck progressed while learning their position at Outsider Hitter - there's a lot of information to process while learning defense and transitioning to offense and these girls are working hard to pick it up; Talia Hamer did a super job of setting and served very strongly - she even chalked up quite a few ace serves; it's not hard to see that Becky Nein loves to play volleyball - she put a ton of effort into her role as a Setter and did a terrific job; Mira Hobson helped the team with good blocking and hitting at the Middle Front position - there's no doubt Mira will continue to improve her game and contribute to the team as her confidence increases.

If this first tournament is any indication of this team's playing ability, we are in for a fabulous season. This is a wonderful group of young ladies with very positive attitudes and nice personalities, which is a blessing indeed and makes the coaching job much easier.

There's no doubt this team has the ability to have a "come from behind" win against a tough team and when it happens we will all see if Allison can really do a cartwheel!

Here's to a great, fun, rewarding season of club volleyball. GO 14's RED ! ! !