Volleyball

We have had three matches since Christmas break.

     The first match was at Svedala on January 7^th. We were missing all three of our outsides for this match. Lisa had the flu that turned into double pneumonia that turned into a pulled rib muscle. Malin had been sick many times so she was still resting to try to get healthy. Sofi’s back was really hurting so she too was resting. Because of these injuries, we brought some new girls to the team. Anna, Daniel’s sister, played outside for us. She played the last time that the team was in the Elitserien, but has three kids now. Jessica played right side for us. She has been coming to our practices once a week. She mostly played beach volleyball, but she has great ball control. We also brought Elin onto our team. She had been playing outside for our B team. We played really well in this match winning 25-20, 25-21, 25-21. I scored 10 points with 8 kills, 1 block, and 1 ace. I got the MVP award, and as usual, my prize was quite interesting! This time I got a can of hairspray and a pen. It was like a $25 can of hairspray though! It also came in handy because I didn’t have any hairspray so I guess it was an ok prize. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_47-1112.htm.

     Our second match was at home against Gislaved. We fought hard, but unfortunately we lost in five 25-23, 19-25, 25-21, 25-27, 11-15. It was a really fun match to play! We had 498 fans at the match. Our gym was packed! The best fans were our local floorball team. There were about 10 of the boys at the match with drums. They were playing drums and cheering the entire match. We were playing great volleyball up until 24-21 in the fourth set. We did the same thing as we did against Engelholm, where we just couldn’t finish the match. We had match point 24-21, but lost the set 25-27. It was very disappointing and frustrating. We lacked the mental toughness to finish the match. We couldn’t fight back in the 5^th set, losing 11-15. We did earn one point though for taking them to five sets. There were two best players on each team for this match. One was picked by one of our sponsors; Malin got that award which was a gym bag. Our club manager picked me as the other player. Of course, I just got flowers! I gave them to my teammate, Linn, because it was her birthday and given the circumstances, I didn’t really want them! I scored 27 points with 18 kills, 3 blocks, and 6 aces. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_53-1112.htm.

     This Sunday, we had a match at Örebro. We beat them in four sets the first time we played them, but they have gotten two new professionals since then. We still won in four sets earning our team 3 points! The sets were 20-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-17. We boarded the bus at 7:30. I stayed awake for almost the entire 5-hour ride as we watched one of my favorite movies, Despicable Me. We also stopped at a mall for a little over an hour where we also ate lunch. The drive was nowhere near as bad as I had expected. We got to the gym 2 hours early so we took a nice long walk before our 16:00 match. The gym was very different than we are used to. It had very high ceilings and bright lights that made it difficult to see at times. We did not play great during the first set. We allowed Örebro to control the play during the first. After that set, we pulled together and played as a team. It wasn’t our best volleyball, but we truly played as a team and supported each other no matter what was happening. We had control for the rest of the match. I got the MVP award and definitely got the best prize that I have gotten so far (but that’s not saying too much!). It was a large pink box that said Sex In The City on it. I started freaking out a little bit because I thought it was going to be the DVDS, but it ended up being some body wash, lotion, and perfume. This is the first perfume that I have ever owned in my whole life! I scored 20 points with 15 kills, 4 blocks, and 1 ace. My favorite part of the match though was that I got to play back row! I really love playing defense. I got to play middle back the majority of the time, which also allowed me to attack from the back row. It was a lot of fun, and I hope I can continue to play some defense! Overall, it was a great team victory. To view full statistics, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_59-1112.htm.

     Our next match is on Wednesday against Hylte/Halmstad. We lost to them in 5 at their place. We are really hoping to have great fan support again this match. It will be a really important match for us to win.

Sidenote: The rankings in our league are by points scored. If you beat a team in 3 or 4 sets, you get 3 points. If you go to 5 sets, the winning team gets 2 points and the losing team gets 1 point.

Here are the current rankings:

            Team                                    Pts.            Record

1.     Katrineholms                       31               10-2

2.     Engelholms                          29               10-1

3.     Lindesberg                           24               8-3

4.     Falköping                            21                7-4

5.     Gislaved                              20                7-5

6.     Hylte/Halmstad                  19                 7-5

7.     Ljungby                               15                4-8

8.     Sollentuna                             9                3-8

9.     Örebro                                  6                 2-10

10. Svedala                                 0                 0-12