Girls' Preseason Tourney

My 5th grade girl's Blue volleyball team had their first preseason tournament this morning, sponsored by St. Leander. Call time was 8:30am, but I was late (my bad). Barely made it to the 9am start. When I arrived, a rep from the tournament sponsor was briefing the participating teams about the format of the tournament, which I found quite interesting.

All the participating schools were grouped by pool, with 3 teams each. Every team played each other once, for a guaranteed 2 matches each. Teams played 2 games (or sets) per match (versus another team), and it didn't matter if you split the games. Bracket play for the following day was determined by point differential. The top 2 teams, with the most points in each pool, moved on to what appeared to be the "winners' bracket, etc. In our pool, we had St. Joseph-Alameda and Our Lady of Guadalupe (OLG).

Our first match was against St. Joseph-Alameda. We won the first game, 27-25, but lost the second, 25-18. Since we won the first game by 2, then lost by 7 in the next, our point differential was -5 points, while St. Joseph-Alameda had +5 points. The next scheduled match was between St. Joseph-Alameda and OLG, so we took a "bye". During the lull, the girls had some donuts and orange juice.

The next match was between our girls and OLG. We handily won the first game, 25-8, but took a little longer on the second, 25-17. This gave us +25 points for this match. With our -5 points in the earlier match, our pool total was +20 points. Since St. Joseph-Alameda won both their games against OLG, they racked up more points, and led our pool at the end of the first day.

Tomorrow was Day 2 of the preseason tournament, Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend because Jake has his Power League #2 tournament at San Jose City College. This left Lou and Jacob to run the shop. Before I left yesterday, I taught Lou my rotation strategy and gave her a copy of it, so she knows what to do tomorrow. Besides, Jacob would be there, too.

Jake's volleyball practice was moved up from 1:30-3:30pm today. He wanted to come and watch the girls play, but I wasn't sure if we would be done in time to grab lunch and take him to practice. St. Leander in San Leandro to San Jose is quite a distance, too. So, his mom took him. They had lunch at Santana Row before heading to Harker for practice. They asked me if I wanted to follow and have lunch with them, but it was just too far. By the time I got there, it might be time to leave. And I didn't want to rush my lunch either.

On the way home, I stopped by Panda Express for a take-out. Well, it was one of those days....

I had planned on picking up Jake after practice. I didn't think the wife would be hanging around and waiting for him for 2 hours. But she did. I guess she went to Valley Fair to shop and kill some time. She called me and asked if I wanted her to pick up Jake. Of course, I said yes. As soon as I hung up, I was snoring. As a matter of fact, I didn't even remember them arriving. But it was all good -- a little break from the mundane task.

By the way, it's Day 2 of the BART strike, and it doesn't look like there will be any resolution anytime soon.

Note:  Author wishes to acknowledge St. Leander School for the use of the illustration in this post.