Tough Loss

Nome Varsity couldn't pull it together tonight. We lost in three
straight games to Barrow. The Junior Varsity won 3 games to 2, winning
the first, third and last game. They really pulled it together and
played tough.

Barrow played well. I'm not saying they didn't. They have this amazing
hitter that has a cannon for an arm. I would get out of the way if she
hit one toward me. Chelsea got to one of those hits but it richocheted
into her face and is going to wind up with a nice shiner. What I am
saying is that Nome should have at least won one game, maybe two. It
should have been closer than it was.

We have to work on eliminating our own mistakes. We're hitting it into
the net and then hitting it long out of bounds. There was a few times
when we were letting the ball drop and we had a big hole in the middle
on the sides. We were making a lot of mistakes, and with this rally
scoring making mistakes gives the other team points--the ultimate
penalty.

As I was watching and thinking about this tonight, I can't think of any
other sport where points are given away without really earning them. If
we have a bad serve, that's a point for the other team. A team can just
sit back and let the other team make mistakes in order to get points.
You don't even have to have a real offense, just wait for the other
team to foul up. As long as a team keeps digging it out and getting it
back over, the chances are pretty good, especially at the junior
varsity and even sometimes on the varsity. We just can't be a good team
if we wait for the others to make a mistake.

We get to play again tomorrow. We get another chance. The girls need to
get psyched up a bit more. The athletic director is going to be taking
us all for a tour of Barrow tomorrow morning about 10:30. I have to buy
a disposable camera.