Volleyball

Kylee was able to try volleyball this year.  She was on a club team (which is much better coached than a league team) of 4th and 5th graders.  There were nine girls on her team.  Her coaches were really intense, and awesome.  She was teaching them all sorts of advanced moves and positioning.  They never let them serve underhand, taught them overhand from the very beginning.  They held practice for two hours, twice a week.  I was really impressed!  (For how much I paid, it was good they were working hard!  Club teams aren't cheap!)

Kylee really liked it!  And she got pretty good at serving.  She could bump pretty well also, but she didn't have many opportunities for setting or spiking in the games.  She was positioned as a hitter for some of the games, but only really had one attempt I think, maybe two.  Their coach was really working with them from the beginning to do the full bump-set-spike instead of just bumping it back over the net.  

I was impressed that Kylee could serve as well as she did with her skinny little arms.  You can see her putting her whole body into it, lol.

Kylee loves soccer a LOT.  But when I asked her which she would choose, volleyball or soccer, she said she couldn't choose because she loves them both the same.  What?!  How does volleyball compare to soccer at all?  Okay, okay, it IS fun.  But soccer is faster paced and more full contact and just more fun to watch.  And play, in my opinion.  But whatever.  I think part of the reason she likes volleyball is 1- her team and coach are fun. 2- Katelynn.  3- some of her good friends at school like it, as well as her cousin.  But I admit, it is fun.  I just can't imagine her choosing it over soccer.  And I wouldn't be thrilled with that since the games are always 4 hour tournaments...  And in 6th grade they have to travel for some of them.  Ugh.   She has been doing both soccer and volleyball (and her regular gymnastics tumbling class) this Spring, but it's been a lot.  And we thought the schedule was going to work out okay until they both changed their schedules and put soccer games right in the middle of volleyball practices.  So Kylee had to miss one of the practices, but she still got two hours of practice a different day.  On Mondays she had Volleyball for two hours, soccer practice for an hour, gymnastics for 1.5 hours.  She handled it surprisingly well.  

Katelynn's mother, my good friend Elizabeth, has been talking about having the girls play volleyball for a couple of years now.  She played in high school and really loves it.  I can tell she's hoping Katelynn will lean towards volleyball.  I'm glad the girls were able to do it together.  These girls have been in soccer together for the past four years.  They've been friends for longer than that.  I remember our first play date when I first moved to Idaho.  They were both six months old.  (Their birthdays are only two days apart).  Katelynn was crawling.  Kylee was not.  They are so cute together and Katelynn is such a fun girl.  You can understand how super sad we are that her and her family are moving to Utah.  Like, this week.  Seriously, I had visions of these two playing soccer together in Jr. High and being the best of friends.  I'm so sad.  But I wish them well and hope to keep in touch.

Her team was really fun.  They had a lot of fun cheers they did.  This is them getting all riled up before a match.  My two favorite cheers were "bump, set, spike it, that's the way we like it."  And "A-W-E-S-O-M-E, volleyball is awesome and so are we" (they fall to the ground at the end.  After a match when they switch side, they run and slide under the net on their knee pads.  

 They also had a little chant they did whenever they scored.  They said, "Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, BOOM!"  And they would jump up and stomp on the BOOM.  Here's a shot of that one.

We ran into Hailee at try-outs and at their last game by chance.

They had a little party for the end of the season.  I took some pictures of the team for fun.  We played parents versus kids.  None of us were very good at returning anything, unfortunately.  It's much easier to play with only five or six players (we had a lot more) and with people you know so you don't have to feel bad about yelling "I got it!" and getting in their space.  Good times.