Spike This (Part 2) ((The Empire Spikes Back))

So the season started...

Let me just say that as a first time sports parent I was unprepared for several things.  First, was how short the season is.  Well I should clarify...  The season is short time wise.  It runs from August to the end of September but in that time nearly every day of the week has some volleyball related activity (practice, games, etc) so your entire life revolves around volleyball for those two months.  The second thing that I was unprepared for was how skilled these kids are.  I expected them to play ok, maybe a little better than your average school yard game but these kids are good and hit hard.  They dive, slide and jump at the ball and set up complicated shots against their opponent.  A large part of them serve overhand and some of the serves will flat take your head off.

Again I figured that Beth would be overwhelmed, that maybe she had started a little too late in sports to catch up with where these kids are.  I realize now that I have underestimated my daughter and her desire to play this game.

The 2011 Rudd Lady Indians have 17 members on their team.  4 or 5 of them played last year and are the veterans.  The coaches try to insure that all of the girls get some playing time as much as possible.  But due to the large team size and being a first timer Beth typically plays about every third game in relief of one of the veterans.  After several practices they determined that Beth would play middle.  Most of the time she plays front middle.  Beths typical playing schedule is to have games on Mondays and Wednesdays.  The first week we were at home for the games and after that we travelled to other schools to play.

With Beths limited playing time and her natural disposition to be quiet and reserved she is not the most aggressive player and didnt have to opportunity to develop as quickly as she needed too. 

About the 3rd of 4th game in Rudd played McAdory and Beth was put into play in the first game of the match.  She played well, better than before.  She served 4 straight un-returned serves and returned several balls that came to her.  Overall I felt like it was a good game for her and that her confidence in her skills would benefit from it.

The season rolled on.

I am making this sound like months ro weeks went by but in reality the whole middle school season takes place in a month and a half start to finish. At this point we are a little over midway through the season and Rudd was scheduled to play Irondale and North Jefferson at North Jefferson.

The game started and the first match was Rudd vs Irondale. I learned that in these games the team that is the farthest away geographically gets to play first. Presumable this is to help with the travel time back home from the game site. This meant that Rudd would play the first and the third matches since they were a little closer to North Jefferson than Irondale. Beth didn't play the first match against Irondale and Rudd got beat in two straight games. They didn't play well and Ironale took advantage of their mistakes. Once that match was over Irondale played North Jefferson; the team that just had beaten Rudd pretty convincingly got hammered by North Jeffereson. During this pounding I started to look around and I noticed that there were banners on the wall and North Jefferson was the reigning the County champion two years running. Yikes.

Rudd took the court and Beth was put into play. I was already a bit nervous about our chances against them and rightfully so. North Jefferson seemed to be moving about twice the speed of Rudd. The girls were not calling their balls or working together in any way.

This was going to be bad.

After a couple of serves North Jefferson netted a serve and Beth rolled into the serving position. While we were still working on her overhand serve she was using her normally reliable under hand. She never missed an underhand, ever. She didn't miss in practice and she had never missed a serve in a game. She took her position and served the ball. It hit the net. The color drained out of her face and you could see any bit of confidence that she had drain with it. North Jefferson took over serving and the beating continued. Beth was in the center of the court and several of the serves came to her.

She missed every single one.

She was in the wrong position, her approach to the ball was wrong and none of them had a chance for anyone to assist. To make matters worse when she went after one she was slow getting back in position and and the next serve came to her spot and someone else had to scramble to cover it, unsuccessfully.

North Jefferson scored 6 quick points.

In between serves Beth frequently looks at me. I like to believe this is for reassurance or to see what my opinion of the game and her performance is. She did during this game and I struggled to think of something positive to say.  I mouthed "Its ok" and she mouthed back "I'm Scared".   I knew right there that she was done in this game. Her confidence was gone and she was not going to be able to help her team. She was in the process of self destructing mentally and it wasn't going to get any better. I told Melinda that the best thing they could do at this point would be to pull beth out.

They should have cause it didn't get better.

The next serve came over and someone managed to get it back over the net. On the return it came directly at beth. I said a silent prayer that she would somehow find the strength to get the ball, that luck would go her way and something good would happen to settle her down and get her back in the game.

It didn't.

She did the one thing that you never, ever do in volleyball.

She ducked.

She ducked the ball like she was in the world championships of dodgeball.

She had no intention of trying to return it or play anymore.

Finally, mercifully, they pulled her out of the game. I think she was as relieved as Melinda and I were. The game finished, North Jefferson beat Rudd very convincingly and we went home. Privately I wondered if volleyball was the right sport for us or if Beth was really cut out for the pressure of team sports or not.

I tried to reassure Beth that it was ok and these things happened but I could tell that she was pretty upset about the whole thing. I hoped things would get better as the season went on but there wasn't a whole lot of time left in the season and it didn't appear that things were going to have a chance to get better. Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me if they never played her again.

Stay tuned for Part 3...