Around the middle of Catherine's first season in CYC volleyball, last September, her coach asked me if she would be interested in trying out for a winter club team. Even though she'd only been playing for a couple months, being a 5'9" seventh grader gave Catherine an automatic volleyball head start, plus she really liked it and practiced constantly and improved quite a lot in a short amount of time. Three of her CYC teammates were planning to try out for a specific club team with a coach known to their parents, and Catherine **really** wanted to keep playing, so we decided she could try out for that team.
I'll be honest: I had never dealt with club sports before and had absolutely no idea what we were getting into. I looked at the proposed season schedule before the tryouts and was a little concerned: two late evening practices each week, one season of Friday night games, and about one weekend tournament a month (a lot of them on Sundays, and it turns out more tournaments were added later), from November through the end of April. If Dema and Grampy T didn't live a few steps away, making it easy for Dema to watch the other kids while I took Catherine to late practices and Michael was working, it would have been impossible from the start. With Dema's help, it went from impossible to difficult, but manageable.
Catherine had never tried out for anything before, so she was a little nervous but really jumped in and did her best and was offered a spot on the team. So we signed the paperwork and practices started not long after that. Catherine loved it. She practiced every day at home, she consistently improved, she figured out her overhand serve, and she learned a lot about rotations and positions and game strategy. She also had to take some online classes covering league rules because the girls all have to referee some games at the tournaments, and the rules for rotations and substitutions are surprisingly complicated.
Her coach easily pegged her as a Middle Hitter, so she only plays at the net and started learning how to approach and hit as well as the timing necessary for a good block. Everything was new, but she was so excited about practicing all the time that she improved weekly, and it was really fun to watch from the sidelines.
Finding her overhand serve was a struggle for a bit but she figured it out over a month or so of daily practice (many many thanks to Dema, who fixed the outdoor sconce light on the garage wall that was collateral damage to serving practice).
After a few games Catherine decided stuffing the ball back on the other team's side of the net was super fun.
But she can also hustle and get under a ball when she needs to and has a great set when the setter calls for help.
And she's learning to jump really high. Once she gets more practice in anticipating the timing and position of a block, she's going to be hard to beat at the net (although we've said only a little jokingly that for the moment, even if she just stands at the net looking tall it helps her team just by intimidating the opposing team).
I remember this picture from a tournament in January. Her team was down by quite a few points and the other team was at game point and Catherine was up to serve, so if any serve failed it was automatically the winning point for the other team. She served seven or eight in a row that were either not returned or volleyed but her team got the point, and ultimately brought them from behind to win. This picture was right after the other team failed to return the final serve and the looks on her teammates faces are so fun. After so many weeks of frustratingly difficult work to get her overhand serve even over the net, being able to accomplish a string of consistently good serves under pressure made it a great game for her. Next challenge is to learn a jump serve!
Here is a short video with three clips, the first a block, then a set, and last a hit. Look for number 6 on the far side of the net in the blue jerseys.
Since I'm writing this in May, I could be reporting all the way through the end of the season anyway, but sadly the season was cut short by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. They were scheduled to continue playing through the end of April, but the last tournament they played was February 29 (where these team jackets were delivered and they were all so excited that we moms had to get a picture).
Soon after that, the league games were put on hold, then practices cancelled, then tournaments cancelled or postponed indefinitely, and it became clear that volleyball (and everything else) was done for the season. City and statewide stay-at-home orders came out and, originally thought to only last a few weeks, will actually stand through the middle of May, and it looks like gatherings will still be restricted after that. We are hoping for a normal season come Fall, but no one really knows. Catherine was pretty well crushed by the abrupt end to the season but I know she will have no trouble picking up right where she left off when she gets back to team practices. One of the great privileges of parenting older kids is watching them find something they enjoy and work entirely of their own motivation to improve at it, and this was definitely the case with Catherine and volleyball this year. This might be something she continues to pursue or it might not, but either way we couldn't be more proud of her for the work she put in this first year!
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