Volleyball and Soccer post-mortems

It's been a few days since the dust has cleared from the soccer and volleyball championships, and it's a good time (or only time before we really get into boys basketball and forget about soccer and volleyball) for us to reflect on the good, bad and even ugly of our two championship games.

First of all, for both teams to get there honestly is a remarkable accomplishment. Both teams had the same dynamics, with players from the 7th grade playing in the 8th grade, the first time the players on the team played together as a team, players on the team that had never played before, and a team of strangers who never met each other until early in September.

For even one of those reasons, they were battling uphill the entire year. And yet, they were both oh so close from taking the ultimate prize.

Second of all, (since there was a first of all) to win a championship takes a lot more than just skill. It also takes a little bit of luck. In both of these games, luck just simply wasn't on the St. Mary's side.

In the volleyball championship, they were leading 23-21 and Aileen had a spike set up nicely. The ball just hit the top of the net. A few inches higher, that ball goes over, and we have championship point.

A ball on set point was right on the edge of in or out, and the lines-person as well as the referee both ruled it in. I zoomed it in 800% on my video editing system and it looked to just graze the line. But nonetheless, a break that didn't go the girls' way.

The other team also had a few balls that just barely touched the net and fell over, huge points in such a tight contest.

Sabrina had a serve late in the third set that just landed out.

Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Moving onto the soccer field, the team played down a man for most of the second quarter, and in return, the other team scored three goals. Eloy, the team's leading scorer was out for portions of the fourth quarter, also not good.

The team had three to four dynamic scoring chances and could not capitalize.

Up against a super fast team, the turf surface worked to the disadvantage of the team. They clearly weren't as fast so playing on a soccer field with real grass would've slowed the other team down.

A lot of calls were not made as the other team was definitely the aggressor.

But when you lose 7-1, can you really point to those factors?

What could the teams have done better?

The girls went away from the bump, set and spike. This was the same thing that happened to the 8th grade girls in their championship in 2009 (Marissa, Emily, Melinda, Tiff Ye and friends…).

When a team is confident and in a rhythm, they feel like they can spike (hit) the ball. When it's a close game, players tend to get nervous and play conservative and just bump the ball over the net, hoping the other team makes a mistake.

That's exactly what happened, and more often than not towards the end, we were the ones that made the mistake.

If you watch the footage, the other team was just solid in passing and bumping. Rarely did they spike or tip. The points that they were earned were off of mistakes that the 7th/8th grade girls committed.

One thing that I preach constantly in any sport, is that you don't look at the scoreboard. You play every point like it's the last one. I can guarantee some of the girls looked at the scoreboard and panic set in.

As for soccer, there really wasn't an answer to the other team. It makes you wonder how they even tied the first time they played.

The other team was faster, quicker, stronger and wanted it more.

The 7th/8th graders also lacked depth. After Pablo, Sebastian and Eloy, there were no goal scorers on the team. They needed some extra firepower and in a championship game, they couldn't get it.

The other team got goals from different players. All year, we got goals from the same three.

If that was the case, and we were expecting goals from only the big three, the mid-field and defense had to be at their best, and they weren't.

One thing you can point to, and Sebastian made this point very clear in his interview after the game, was that they did not practice hard enough and went into the game perhaps a little too over-confident.

Their practices were not the best if you ever watched them. They goofed around too much, and this was from top to bottom. The work ethic in practice was a factor in the game.

Hopefully, lesson learned there.

Finally, they had to have thicker skin. They were being physically pushed around by the other team and they let it affect their game. If the ref isn't going to call anything, you have to have the mental strength and determination to play through it.

I cut this out from the interviews I did, but each player mentioned that the ref didn't make certain calls.

Yes, that could be true. But in the end, there's nothing you can do about bad calls, and you need to make the plays that are needed in the game, so bad calls don't affect the outcome.

Now if you have made it this far in the post mortem, do me a favor and click one of the cool, interesting or funny buttons at the bottom just so I know how many of you were able to follow this long.

I can't stress that even though I am pointing out what they could've done better, I couldn't be more proud of the two teams.

Volleyball and soccer are two sports where we have had a lot of trouble with fielding competitive teams since we have not had it in existence for very long. Did it help we had some athletic talent from the players at DeMarillac? Yes.

But without the St. Mary's players who played before, there would be no team either.

Cynthia and Isabella were very good this year, and so was Sabrina, who was the only girl who decided to join and stick with volleyball in her class.

Daniel, Brandon Khuu, Hunter, and Brendan continued to play when other boys in their class bailed. They were rewarded with a championship game.

Hartman remained the only boy in his class to ever play soccer. He took two real hard balls to the face that we caught on camera, and both times he got back up and kept going.

Getting to these championship games was for all the players who suffered through the struggles of bad seasons when you couldn't wait for it to end because you didn't want to lose anymore. But we're not there anymore. That was then - this is now.

We were well represented and I can only hope that this year is the turning point.

Next year, I hope all the players who have played continued and this could possibly be a motivating factor for those who are scared, or parents who don't want their kids to play, to go out and try volleyball or soccer.

From here on out, we should believe we can compete in soccer, volleyball and any sport for that matter. All it takes is showing up, and the rest of it will come.

Thank you to everybody, coaches, parents, players, friends and loyal supporters for making this the best volleyball and soccer season we've ever had.