Grade 8 Volleyball 2012

Top:Me, Max Russel, Reggie Williams, Jace Folk, Tate Sommerfeldt
Brandt Beebe, Trey Wells
Bottom:Harrison Miller, Clieve Durfey, Kaysen Shaw

     I coached the Grade 8 boys Volleyball team this year at the Junior High. We started the year a little shaky with our skills, but as the year went on the boys just got better and better. Each tournament that we attended we seemed to improve on the skills that we needed to succeed as a team. We won two big tournaments this year. Our First big win was the final Divisional tournament of the year. This one was for all the marbles. The Boys wanted to win this tournament  because we would get medals and a volleyball to sign and keep in the school. We beat everyone in  the round robin and we were going into the final with a lot of confidence. We played Hillspring in the final. The first set we started slow and were down 19-8. The boys battled back and Reggie Williams went on a run with serving and we came back and won the first set. The second set we lost, so we went to the third and final set. The third set started off with us getting down 9-1. Now in a set that only goes to 15 this was rough, but the boys battled and we came back and ended up winning the set and the tournament. It was a crazy game and all the Cardston girls team was there cheering us on. It was so loud. The kids were so excited!!!

Top: Jace Folk, Max Russell, Me, Harrison Miller
Brandt Beebe, Tate Sommerfeldt
Bottom: Clieve Durfey, Kaysen Shaw, Aaron Schmidt,
Reggie Williams

     The second big Tournament was in Taber for the South Zone playoffs. This was important, because it was the first time that the Cardston Junior High would be able to play for a middle school zone banner. This banner would be put up in the school for ever, so the boys really wanted to win. We played great in the round robin and only lost one set. We ended up finishing first in the pool after all the round robin games were done. This meant that our semi-final game would be against the last place team in the pool. This was a great thing for us, because we would loose one of our best players to a championship football game that was on the same day and time. We made it through the semi-final with out any trouble, but it would be a tough final. The best and luckiest part of the tournament was that we were running about an hour behind schedule and this allowed our player in football to get back from his game and play in the final. We won the first set of the final fairly easy. We lost the second set. So, again we would go to the dreaded third set to decide who would win the tournament. We were down 14-13 in the final set and the other team (Gilbert Patterson) had serve. I called a quick time out and calmed the kids down and told them to focus on getting a good pass. We scored the next point and our player that had come back from football had the next serve for us. He served two in a row that the other team couldn't handle and we WON!!! The best part was that the Gilbert Patterson coach had been complaining the whole tourney and received a yellow card during the game. So that made the victory even sweeter. I had a great time coaching these boys this year. It was fun to see how much they improved over the season.