A Week of Learning.

The last 2 weeks have been very interesting one if you follow our Bobcats Women's Volleyball team.  We came off a decent weekend against Manitoba and had a short week to prepare for Mount Royal. We traveled to Calgary on Weds to be able to play Thursday and Friday.

We ended up losing both night to Mount Royal and we were taught a very interesting lesson about discipline and block defense.  Mount Royal was very well prepped and kept us off balance both matches.  They then did a great job of funneling our attackers to their defenders.  We were leaning on balls and really using our wt room strength.  We found out that we couldn't over power them.  They were able to dig up and transition our shots.  Secondly we started to free lance on our own defense.  

For example we asked our blockers to take away the left side on their middle and our player in middle back would then slide to the right to help defend.  Instead our middles would front the attacker and they would score to the left.  Eventually our defenders started cheating left, but our middle would then block properly and they would score to the right side.  It was all unraveling defensively.  The same thing started happening with our blockers they would set up to block cross and would reach back to line and then proceeding to have the ball hit off them.

After Friday’s match we watched a set together in the hotel and really noticed what was happening.  Hoping that would help Saturday.  I know that blooper video never helps.  It was in essence a blooper video discussing our block defense.  It didn’t help.

Our league is such a tough competitive league that .500 winning percentage will not get you in the playoffs.  Our league is November to February, it is hard to think but in early November we are feeling playoff pressure with those two losses.  We felt we needed at least a split.  

Monday’s practice was crucial we needed to get back into our groove.  This practice was a defensive one with a lot of pursuit and tough defensive situations.  We then began to introduce our defense again a different way.  We spent all Sept and Oct hoping to solidify our defense block relationship.  Over the course of this practice we discovered that we had different terminology.  When I was saying read they were thinking different from what we were trying to accomplish.

Tuesday I called Scott Koskie.  Scott is our assistant coach on the Canadian National Team and we discussed a variety of ways to teach block and defense.  We came to the conclusion that we needed to put them in different problem solving situations.  We designed a drill that worked well.

It is a 6 versus 6 wash style game.  Team A would be on serve reception and would also receive a free ball. This would happen 5 times and then Team B would receive the serve and the free ball.  Before the first serve we would give Team B specific defensive instructions.  Of the leftside on Team A scores line they get 3 points. If team A middle scores on the left side they get 3 points.  Then Team B would huddle up and decide how they wanted to defend this problem.  We then gave Team B a point for a dig, a point for a set and a point for a kill.  If they played proper defense they could get 3 points on each ball.  We felt rewarding the defense and the block would keep the focus on that skill.  Plus with the players deciding how they would defend the situation also helped them discuss and figure out different defensive ideas.

This worked well and it led well into explaining our game plans again.  The team prepped for University of Calgary Dino’s much better.  Everyone could feel the energy and commitment within the team.  We had a good week of practice.

Our Friday’s match was sold out we had the largest crowd of the season and we started really slow and Calgary was on fire.  We were still in our funk.  We couldn’t pass or defend.  Nothing was working.  The effort was there but still slightly off.  In the 3^rd set we were down by a fairly large margin when we substituted Brooke Huculak.  Brooke is a first year outside attacker from Forrest Manitoba.  Her old high school team was at the match.  When she entered the match her team went crazy.  She served and made some big defensive plays.  This seemed to energy the team and the crowd. We battled back and won the 3^rd set 25-23.  Then all of a sudden everything we worked on made sense.  We won the 4^th 25-18.  The fifth was a really battle.  They went ahead 14-12 when Kellie Baker had 2 back to back stuff blocks for the tie.  We then went ahead on a great defensive transition.  We had three match points that Calgary held off.  We lost 19-17.

Saturday we had a chance to explain in a bit more detail our blocking ideal and show what it looked like when we did it properly.  This the opposite approach from the week before.  This worked well for us.  Saturday’s match was all Bobcats.  We won in straight sets and held the Dino’s to .107 hitting efficiency.  It is something we can be proud of.  This still has us at 5-5 record.  The upcoming weekend we play U of W and it is another big match.  WE need to apply what we learned this week and keep building.  This week is still a strong defensive focus week.

Rivalry Weekend

This past weekend we played the Manitoba Bison’s.  They are presently ranked #4 in Canada and are one of our provincial rivals.  I started to talk to our team Monday about rivals and what they mean.  The rival matches are exciting for us and the school gets rev’d up for them too.

In a study in 2006 Ku came to the conclusion that a rivalry is really something that exists within the minds of competitor and media. The rivalry intensifies with  prior interaction. It is also given that rivalry magnifies competitors’ psychological involvement and desire to win independent of objective stakes, it may lead to departures from rational or typical competitive behavior.  

The Bison team is very close in age with our team.  They are a young team that relies on young players to be successful.  They have played club together for a long period of time and our really disciplined in their systems. Our Bobcat athletes have played alongside the bison players on school, club and provincial teams. They have formed strong friendships off the court with the Bison players.  This made last week of training interesting.

The first noticeable reaction was Monday.  We arrived at school to find that the construction was still going on and they had a vehicle exhaust venting to the hall of the gym.  So they asked us to not practice.  The team was disappointed and seemed a little concerned about the lack of reps they would get.  Monday’s practice is used to just make some small corrections from Saturdays match therefore it is usually very light.  Second event happened during our video session the athletes had a lot more information to give out about the individual Bison players. The athletes also all asked more questions and wanted to see more specific video of the Bison starters.  (My hope is that this preparation will soon transfer into a weekly event. ) When an athlete gets into their 4^th and fifth years they have competed against a lot of the same players on all the oppositions.  They will have stories and remember what happened the last time we did this...the opposition did that. Our first and second year players were feeding a lot of extra information since they knew so much more.

Friday we came out flying.  Our serving game plan worked well.  We kept the pressure on them and that made it easier for us to block and play defense around that.  The first set we would get a good lead and then the Bison’s would battle back we eventually won the first set 25-23.  The next 2 sets went well for us.  We were able to control the match and won 25-17 and 25-18.  Tori Dakin had 4 serving aces and Shanlee Mclennan added two more.  Shanlee is leading the nation in serving aces.

We knew Saturday we would see a different team.  The Bison’s are well coached and very disciplined. They would make some adjustments and we would need to adjust.  From the start of the match we seemed a bit off. We fought the ball, the Bison’s changed their serving strategy and we found it difficult to adjust.  I feel that we spent too much time evaluating our passes instead of playing off them.  If we pass a one we need to find a way to score or put the opposition in trouble so we can get an easier ball back and then be in system.( A little story to input here...  In the 2008 Olympics the Brazilian men’s team knew the U.S. team would serve tough.  They decided to use the U.S. block to help get them into a better situation.  The Brazilian team would intentionally roll into the U.S. block and then cover that shot.  They would then run speed off that play.  It worked really well and helped them win the match).

The Bison’s kept pressure on us the entire set. They won 25-21 that set was never in doubt. We battled back in the second set and matched their score. 25-21. The third set we struggled again with ball.  I also think this is the rivalry, we wanted to win the second night so bad that when we weren’t winning like we were Friday it was magnified.  We talked in our pre-game about playing in the moment.  I played am Asic’s commercial to help explain it. But doubt crept into our heads. At the end of the set I tried making a couple of subs to relieve the starters and hope the substitute could bring some energy.  The Bison’s won 25-19.

The fourth set the wheels fell off completely.  We struggled at every aspect of the game.  As we made more errors we started to set the ball higher and to call for a higher set.  That played into their hands as they were able to close blocks everywhere.  We decided to make a couple of subs.  We put Mary into the match to set for Kellie, Gillian went in for Shanlee and Larissa went in for Lexi. The 3 subs played with a ton of passion and energy.  WE called a time out down 14-6, and just asked the group to compete just do what they can and have fun with it. What happened next was really impressive.  That group battled hard dug some balls and went on a tear.  They caught up to the Bison’s and tied the game at 21-21.  It was fun to watch them find different ways to win and they celebrated each other’s success.  We played hard, but eventually the Bison’s came out on top 28-26^th.  The Bison’s showed why they are 4^th in Canada, but we grew in confidence.  We all learned that we have a deep bench and the pressure for the starters to perform is off them.  If they struggle which all do we have players that can perform.  It also showed us that if we play with confidence and just play with whatever happens and find away to cut down our red ball errors, like our team did in the fourth set,we can play with the top in the nation.

A little side note, Brandon University Women’s volleyball is #1 in Canada in hitting efficiency. (kills-error/total attempts)  it is rare that a Canada West team is that high.  But we will celebrate that for now.  Shanlee added 4 more serving aces to maintain her 6 ace lead on the next player.