182 year in review

So I just woke up from a nap on the bus. Suprisingly the bed on the bus wasn't uncomfortable! It's exciting because I never get to sleep on a bed in the bus during the season haha. So on to my 18s season...lot's and lot's ob obstacles and challenges. First was the lack of size and not having any true middles. Secondly I lost a setter to mono, a hitter to knee surgery, and a little (defensive player) to a wrist injury. The team had a huge playing experience gap amongst players. I also had a stud senior who didn't know where she was going to play in college and she was getting offers from schools which I thought she was too good for. I learned that coaching an 18s team can be difficult because they have so much going on with their school activities and sports that you really have to accomplish as much as you can when you have everyone together...atleast for me. I had one player who was an outside and never had played middle or hit a quick set in her life but was just a physical player that can jump out of the gym. I've never had a player that worked as hard as she did. There would be nights where I'd do team conditioning and pretty much kick their ass until their body reaches failure and this girl kept trucking when everyone else might have slowed down or even stopped. I wish I could have done more to fix her goofy footedness :( fortunately I was able to grab a middle a little into the season; however, she had a stress fracture in her foot and hadn't done anything physical in a looooog time. After getting her back in the game and getting her to touch the ball she ends up being our best all around player. She ended up signing with the University Central Missouri. I was so relieved that she is going there because she hadn't really gotten any worthwhile offers because she really just got in the recruiting scene this season! She had gotten offers to schools that I thought weren't good enough for her. My setter was very easy to coach. The funny thing is that she reminded me of me when I played club. A shorter setter that had a good brain and played like she was 6 feet tall. I was able to run in system back row pipes and even biqs (back row quick attacks) which not a lot of setters would be able to handle (same with the hitters). She will be playing at Fort Hays State University next year. My littles were amazing. They we're the 2 I really didn't have to coach much. They knew what they had to do and got it done. I was able to pretty much run a 2 person serve receive passing rotation whenever I wanted to because of them. I think teams remember us for our backrow playing on defense and offense. A lot of that was possible because of those 2. One of my littles will be playing at Missouri State University next year. My outsides were the ones that improved the most throughout the season. One of them is a very solid outside player who's main weakness was defense but towards the season was digging balls like she was a libero. My other outside had a problem of over running the ball on her approach. Our last 2 tournaments she did a better job of fixing it and was lighting girls up in the backrow. She even played 6 roatations in the last tournament when she usually got subbed out and did phenomenal. My other hitter was only a sophomore in hs and didn't show intimidation at all being on the court against 18s teams. She was like a sponge that just wanted to learn as much possible so she can improve which was awesome. My 18s was a very awesome experience. I've always wanted to train girls like mens team with the in system backrow ball and these girls did it well. The last college I coached at couldn't do that as well as they did. I was also pleased with how we attempted to get a good approach and high percentage swing on every dig because free balls suck...there's that men's volleyball hitting mentality again. Though we faced so many obstacles that tried to slow us down we still improved. Even though we didn't have a lot of team practices where everyone was there, we were able to play in system as a team come tournament time. My parents were awesome supporters. There are a lot of parents that nag to their coaches as to playing time or you're doing it all wrong and they'll hound you especially as an 18s coach but I never ever had to talk to a parent about anything like that. The only parent talks I had were about recruiting and injury. So thank you parents for being so supportive and trusting me with your daughters. Well it looks like it's time for another nap on the bus :). I'll update everyone on our Houston trip soon!