Like Oxygen (Blog Post #1)

For the past three days, my team and I have been in Chicago for a Junior National Qualifier tournament. This tournament determines whether we will travel to Louisiana for Junior Olympics later this summer. As a team we have had to deal with intense emotions throughout this whole season.  Whether it be from decisions made by our coaches, or injuries from playing, we have had to persevere through it all in order to get to where we are today.  Leading up to this three-day tournament we have had some rough patches with adjusting to new coaching styles and new teammates which we didn't have last year.  In order to do that we have had to work harder than ever and keep our energy up to compete in the highest level of volleyball that we can.  My team and I have been through countless injuries this year so far, from sprained ankles to concussions. I think these setbacks have pushed us to work even harder to succeed.

For this tournament, we've won all our games in the first two days, but our last day tomorrow will determine if we get a bid to JO's. I think we're all excited but also slightly nervous with the new lineups...I think we all just have to persevere and go all out. We got the bid last year when we won in Kansas City, and that weekend, we just went crazy with our energy at a constant high. Tomorrow, we need to make sure that we have a solid, good warm up because the other team will have already played (we're getting a buy, which means we get to skip a game). Once we start playing, we have to keep pushing ourselves. We can not give up if they get a couple of points. We have to want to win as bad as we need oxygen. We can't get comfortable. We got to play to win.