Lessons from the U-14's

This past weekend I had the privilege to coach our two U-14 volleyball teams in their first tournament of the year. This year we have 9 out of our 14 athletes volunteering at different levels of club in the city.  The athletes make it possible for other young players to succeed.  The young athlete really look up to the BU girls.  It is awesome experience for both sides.

This weekend also fell on the annual indoor beach tournament that our local technical college ACC runs.  It is called Son of a Beach.  It is a big event in Brandon with over 200 coed teams participating at different level.s It is the one event that I promise the team I won't schedule anything so they could participate in it.  OOPs I made a mistake on dates.  In-order to fix this problem  I decided to coached both of the teams.

I forgot how much we have to teach the athletes and parents at this age.  For most it is their first real competition that they will be a part of.

Lesson's

1.  Assume nothing.  The coaches handed out the draw for the players to see, they played their first game at 5:30 on Friday.  With the direction of be their a little earlier than normal so we can hand out jersey;s.  Well most of them showed up at 5:20.  That was 5 minutes earlier than they are normally at practice.  By the time the jerseys were handed out the opposition was attacking in warm-up so we just went behind and passed and ran for 3 minutes.

2.  Educate the parents.  In the first warm-up we had a parent come on to the court to give feedback to his daughter as she was going through the hitting line.  I started to laugh and politely asked him to head back up into the bleachers.  He responded my daughter just trying to help.   I thought this was great, smiled and responded  "not now she is not, she is our player. She becomes your daughter again when the match ends" The rest of the weekend he was very loud positive supporter of all players.  We didn't cover this in our parent meeting at tryouts.

3. The Wave and High 5's are a big part of the game.   I was sitting on the bench as we scored a point the players on the bench started doing the wave down the bench.  I also learned you should change your leg cross every 5 pts very important for focus on the bench.  The players who weren't in the match were having a ton of fun on the bench.  I wonder if some time we take this a little too serious at the university level.  I need to encourage our athletes to have fun while being a support, but still remained focused.

4. No matter the level it is a serve an pass game.  Also as long as the games not over we have a chance.  there were some amazing runs of serving.  Teaching the athletes basic passing strategy.  The ball goes where you lean.  That lesson alone helped fix some of the problems.  If you want the ball to go forward, you need to lean forward.  The ball keeps going backward off the serve...I would ask "Whats the rule?" they would often figure it out on their own.  The second rule we put in was back row calls off front row.  That solved a lot of who gets which ball issues.

5.  WE also talked in between sets about what happens after an error. We discussed how everyone who made the error felt, and as a team how can we fix it.

6. We also learned no such thing as positioning.  Switching is a complicated thing when your worried about where to go to high 5 who...One young athlete I told her she was setting this match. (We use a 4-2  Front setter all the time).  She replied I am a middle. I waved my hand and said TADA, now you are a setter.  Then we went out.  I believe at this level we can teach systems, but we can also have them play all positions.  It gives them a greater understanding of the game.

This weekend coming up we are hosting a U-16 tournament,  I have all the players refereeing.  I reminded the first year players to interact and be fun in the hallways.  One of the players on this team will be on your team in your 5th year.  Set the tone now.

Thoughts on CIS WVB Nationals

First off Congratulations to UBC the 5 time National Championship.  They were pushed hard in the final by Alberta Panda's.  Interesting to note that the Panda's had a run of 6 in a row so it was interesting to see these two powerhouse programs go at it in the final.

I think the final eventually came down to serving and passing.  Both UBC and U of A serve the ball incredibly tough. U of A was first in the nation in serving errors and second in the nation is serving aces.  By the looks of the stats and nationals U of A was feast or famine with their serving.  Watching them play through the nationals and then also having played them the last weekend of regular season this was obvious. I would have to change my mindset a lot to buy into this type of serving plan.  I was getting frustrated with the misses just watching the Nationals.  It appeared to me that Laurie just took it in stride, she trusted their ability to "sideout", she had to stress at all with their serving. UBC was 9th in service errors and 5th in aces.  Again they were a tough serving team.  UBC tended to serve the ball a little easier later in the match and after timeouts.  They wanted to the opposition to earn that point.  UBC is also the tallest team in the league and has 3 international level outside attackers, they had the ability to score in transition. They trusted their block defensive transition game and in the end it was this that helped them 5peat.

The second thing I really noticed is both teams played a real disciplined block defensive game.  The two teams were a different style.  U of A had their right sides start in a spread at the antenna and UBC started in a bunch block.  UBC also runs their setter out of the middle when she was in the front row.  Interesting note UBC ended up using a double sub in the 4th and 5th sets to go back to a regular middle late in the sets.  This kept them  with 3 front row players in crunch time.  Both teams seemed to block the line and try to funnel the attackers cross court.  When either setter started forcing the ball tight the opposition block was successful. When they set the ball off the net the attackers were successful. The match ended on a forced set to the right side that was tight.

The 3rd point is recruit the best athletes.  Both U of A and UBC have players on their team that have national team experience. UBC has 3 outside attackers that practice with the National A or B team.  The tournament MVP Lisa Barclay, played on the FISU games team this summer.  Lisa is from Brandon and we were excited to see her win and play so well in the final.  It also was a little disappointing that she didn't stay in Brandon to help build and win with us.  But in talking with Lisa, the academic money she gets plus carding money is more money than we could offer her.  In the end Lisa made a choice that was good for her, and obviously she has improved a ton.  But Brandon will always lay claim to some of her Success.

U of A had Alena Olmenchenko from Kazakhstan join their team this year.  Alena was a little unorthodox as she always took off on one foot.  Attacking and serving she would run the step foot work.  At 6'4" she hit the ball at angles we don't see to often and put up a huge block.  She was the player U of A needed to put them over the top, and really deserved to win the match.

McGill winning the Bronze was unexpected as they had upset Laval in their league championships. So they entered into the tourney in 5th.  McGill won their quaterfinal against St. Mary's from Halifax.  St. Mary's had two outside attackers that were legit and used them a lot.  McGil had a balanced attack, but really they relied on their defense to win games.  I called it the "rope a dope" of volleyball.  Keep the ball in play and force the other team to be consistent, eventually they will make errors.  It worked well for McGill down their playoff stretch and helped them win their first medal at Nationals.

Three medal winners each with a different style of play.  I think that this demonstrates that it doesn't matter which system you play.  What matters is the team buys into the system and executes it well.  Can't be second guessing or making drastic changes in the stretch run.  Tom Skinner our sport psych likes to say.  If the coach is still having to demand system work when the team is entering the playoffs the team is finished.  The players should own the team by that time and take responsibility for each other and themselves.  Coaches then give information for the team to use.  The belief in each other and the system needs to be solid.

Next Year Already

It has been two weeks since our season ended.  We are starting to talk with the athletes about next year.  We want to have them think back about the year and evaluate themselves.  We will ask some tough questions and  then encourage them to begin preparation for next year.

As a coach we need to evaluate ourself as well as the team.  I have had many discussion with the athletes and assistant coaches to find out why we didn't make playoffs and what can we do different.  Personally I feel we need to have more contact with the athletes, try to schedule more video sessions with them to discuss what they need to improve on.  The quick time video above has a good message for our team and coaches.  We need to do more this summer than our opposition.

Last summer I had the amazing opportunity to work with the national team and brought in some of their ideas to the program.  Mike Hebert the long time coach of University of Minnesota wrote in his blog, that we need to think about things and not follow them in blindly. If we go to a symposium or listen to the national team coach talk we need to decide if the information is correct for our level. Just because the ideas are right for one person they might not be right for all.  The entire blog can be read http://bit.ly/A5E96K.  Mike uses the example of many different volleyball programs.

The ideas I decided to use with our team were the ones that we decided could make us better. Fit into the style we are trying to play.  Using the idea of traffic lights colours to determine types of shot situations was very successful for us.  For the most part it gave us terminolgy for the different situations.  WE improved a lot in our Red light situations.  When we controlled the ball and didn't give the opposition free points from trying to force things we were very competitive. Volleyball is fast becoming a game of errors or controlling the errors.

An area that we struggled in was serve reception.  We have been keeping a pretty good track of our team's passing.  As an over all we passed the best down the middle of the body. Mid-lining is still the prime passing positioning.  The next was to outside our body to the left, we could adjust and bring the ball back towards the middle of the court.  We were weak to our right and high above our heads using our hands.  The gold medal terminology of left is right and right is wrong was proven correct in our team. In talking with a lot of coaches in our league we feel that the new Mikasa international ball that we use has really affected the passing stats.  Laurie Eisler from U of A, actually said she felt like she forgot how to teach passing.  The ball floats in such dramatic fashion. Doug Reimer from the defending national champions thinks that there are at least 3 swing and misses a match.  He referred to it as a batter in baseball missing a curve ball.  With these things in mind I began talking to other coaches about what we can do to improve passing the ball.  Calvin Aubin a mentor coach from Alberta, suggested that maybe we try to pass the ball to the left of the body, or off the left knee instead of in the midline.  His rationale was if the ball floats to the right it would end up in our midline, or would be a less drastic movement of the arms.  If the ball floats to the left we lunge after it keeping the platform to bring the ball back to the middle of the court.  He used the term more room for error. This spring season we will try this with our passers to see if it will work.  In theory I can see the success of it, but need to physically try it before I buy into the idea.

We also have assigned our 200 level volleyball coaching class to analyze our season.  One of the criteria for the class is to create a game plan against us. So we assigned each person in the class a different match for them to stat and break down.   At the end we should have lots of trends to show and discuss with our individual player.  This allows the students to learn how to game plan and save me some time going back to analyze the season. I then will use this to help discuss different situations for the individual players.

We also will do physical testing again to try and determine a baseline for the summer.  We will set goals on the different individuals as far as what they should hope to accomplish.  5 months a person can make dramatic changes in the physical conditioning both positively and negatively.  This year overall our team was good with the conditioning, but in the summer it is up to them.  They don't have the team beside them talking into working out when they are not ready to go.

Like the video says "Are you the one to do 12..."

Recruits

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. Walt Disney

This was the theme of last week, a chance to look at what we accomplished, say good bye to some very loyal athletes and a chance to send our program into the future.  We had three outstanding local players commit to the team. Jodie Baker, Gillian Leech and Mary Thomson.

All three of these players have played in the Storm club program here in Brandon.  The program is organised and ran by our local advisors and assistant coaches.  Kevin Neufeld, Derek Richels, and Bryce Wilson.  All three of these guys have had a huge impact on our program and development of volleyball in Brandon and Manitoba.

Jodie Baker is a very physical 6’2” middle player from Crocus High School.  Jodie is the younger sister of our third year setter Kellie Baker.  We figured that with Kellie’s help we would be able to get Jodie to commit.  Jodie is an all around athlete, the basketball coaches in the province were really disappointed to find out she signed a letter of intent for us.  Jodie is also a provincial level fast ball player, we can’t wait until we can get her to just train for volleyball and being a volleyball player first and foremost.  Like her sister Kellie we expect Jodie to continue playing ball in the summer, but with a strong focus on our team’s weights and dry land.  Jodie’s mom played basketball at BU so she had some pressure from there to come here as well.

Gillian Leech is a 5’10” outside attacker from Vincent Massey in Brandon.  Gillian and Jodie walked into my class one day to tell me they had made up my mind.  It couldn’t have come at a better time.  Gillian has a tremendous arm; she hits a very heavy ball.  This year Gill committed herself to fitness, she hired a personal trainer and this has made a huge difference in her game.  Derek says you can notice the improvement in her jump.  It is not that she is jumping a lot higher than she was, just she is jumping at that point at the end of the game not just the first set.  That is a big improvement for Gill.  Gillian’s mom is a former Olympian so excelling in sport has been in her family for generations.

Mary Thomson is from Crocus as well, she is another great all around athlete, we have recruited Mary to set.  Mary is also a strong attacker, on most of her teams she plays on she starts out setting but then they need more offense and ends up swinging.  She won the MVP in our midget elite provincial championships as a rightside attacker.  She made the team as a setter.  I am excited to work with Mary’s athleticism.  Mary’s mother and father both played Basketball here at Brandon University.  We are starting to get second generation athletes coming back to Brandon.  Lucky for us it is in volleyball.


These three athletes are all from Brandon, I have been in contact with the three of them for quite some time.  I have watched Jodie and Mary play since they were in Bantam.  Gillian was a little later getting into our minds.  We questioned a bit her physicality and she has passed that with flying colours the last two year.


I also took time to go through every college teams roster in Ontario and Alberta. WE then compare the roster to the league stats.  We hope to find a young athlete who is one of the top players in each league.  College transfers are a good way to bring in some experience and leadership. There is always a few players that we miss in CIS who end up taking a college route for a couple of years.  This is a good route for some players, it worked well for our captain Jaryn Ruether.  She was able to be the go to player, get a high volume of sets and get a strong belief in her skills.  I was in particular interested in what the Ontario College league had.  In every team there was 1 or 2 players that stood out, but most of the players we in either their 3rd or fourth years.  I think it is hard to bring an athlete in for 2 years if they are not going to be drastically better than what we have already.  


We need to add a few players to the puzzle to keep improving and getting to a point where we are not one set away from playoffs.  We are confident that these 3 players that committed are a step in that direction,  we are still looking for  2 maybe 3 more for this year.


Recruiting never ends.

Final Weekend

The season came down to this one final weekend.  We have put our self in a position that we needed to a least get a split with Alberta.  They are currently ranked #4 in Canada so that is a tall order for our team.  We are coming off two disappointing road trips. The positive in the lining is that we have 6 wins and 1 loss at home.  We decided to put together a motivational video.  We wanted to stress the process and not worry about the result.

The video clip is from Tackling the past a made for TV movie and the song is from Finger 11.  I hope they don't mind us borrowing them for this reason. The highlights are from our webcast and Westman Communication Broadcasts.   We watched the video 1.5 hours before we took the court with the hope of implanting our previous success and giving the team confidence.

WE had to make a decision about who would play libero for us.  Lindsay had her cast off and has practiced a couple of times.  After discussions with our leadership team we decided on using a rookie Brianna Walsh,  Bri has been a good energy sub for us this season.  We decided to not use her in serve reception.  We wanted to limit the amount of things she needed to focus on.  We thought if she only really had to focus on the defensive end of things it would help her be successful. We came out flying jumped out to a 7 point lead in the first set.  We then watched as Alberta came back to win the set 26-24.  When we switched sides we talked about having to take the match from them, they are ranked fourth they won't give it to us.  We then battled in the second to win 30-28, our game plan of forcing middle was starting to pay off.  WE played a real point trading 3rd set where we tied most of the match.  We called a timeout at 24-23 and I asked Kellie to run a push 51 to Meaghan, they already had the play called themselves.  Meaghan bounced the ball for the set win.  The fourth set we jumped out to a huge lead and hung on to win the match.  Probably the best match we have played as a team.  covering for each other, bettering the ball not worrying about what just happened just trying to win the point and adjust.

Saturday our adversity tank had run dry.  We had lost our back up setter during th UBC match.  Shanice Marcelle hit a high shot off the top of her index finger and damaged her tendon so she is out for 6 weeks. Kellie our starting setters, back siezed up and she has bad shinsplints.  We gave her the morning off to stretch and ice, she was going to be a big part of the match.  As a coaching staff we could feel the difference in the team right from the start of our game day at 11.  We tried really hard to stay positive and to keep the day fun and upbeat. Alberta needed to sweep us 3-0 for them to finish second in Canada West, we needed to win 1 set and hope for a TRU loss to get in.  We elected to not tell the team, we wanted to stay focussed on the process which worked so well the night before.  In the end Saturday was just an picture of our season.  It mirrored the year.  WE started out really well jumping out to a lead at the 16 technical time out.  Then the strike happened... U of A went on a big run to win 25-21, then the entire team went on strike in the second set, worrying about all the wrong things, unsure what was going on.  I am positive it was the same feelings that they went through during our 45 day strike.  We lost the second 25-12.  Now it would have been easy to pack it in after that loss.  We made a change and started Claire at rightside.  Claire and Jaryn battled hard for it was their last set, they inspired the rest of the team to match their level of competiton.  But in the end like our season we came up just short losing 28-26.  We would lose out of playoffs by 1 set, hard to imagine that 1 set anywhere in the year could have helped us out.  This is the lesson to carry forward, every single set is important.  Every point you play can make the difference between playoffs or not.  In Canada West we cannot take a set off.

Graduations Day.

This weekend is one of our happier/sad events.  It is our last home league game.  On this day we celebrate the athletes and their accomplishments.  But we really focus on the graduating ones.  This year we have 2 graduating players.  Our SID Matt Packwood put together a nice video about their time here.

Claire Willerton, I spoke about Claire earlier in the season.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my time coaching Claire. I speak about her in the video and will miss her.  I remember my very first year sitting in Crocus High School gym watching Claire play in her grade 12 year.  Here was an incredible 6'3" athlete doing everything, she was passing and attacking.  We talked to her for the first time there.  I also remember Claire's big blocks.  She is one of the best blockers we have ever had here in Brandon.  One on one she was a force.

Jaryn Ruether,  Jaryn is a product of Grande Prairie Regional College and their Wolves Club program.  I knew about Jaryn coming up and through the school ranks when I was coaching in Grande Prairie.  We tried three times to get Jaryn to come to Brandon.  The first two times she chose to stay and play for her home college team.  That speaks volume to her loyalty to that group.  As a former coach of GPRC I know the motto, "once a Wolf always a Wolf" is really respected there.

For graduation night, we honour the two grads and then take them and their families along with any alumni that can make it to this day out for supper and a few drinks.  It is a chance for the alumni to reminisce about their time together and a chance to welcome the two grads to the alumni. Graduation does not mean the end of your connection to the team.  Every win we experience is because of those who came before.  The people who set the foundation and traditions.  Being a Bobcat is more than playing.

 I think this vision of alumni involment is shown well in our group  as Becky Young, Sara Grona and Ashley Crieghton are all very involved with helping coach the bobcat program now. Other Alumni who have moved away are still making their impact in volleyball and helping spreading the Bobcat lore; Erin Henning is coaching at Grande Prairie College, Nicole Ban is coaching at Grant MacEwan College, Joely Hanke is coaching high school in Ponoka Alberta, Ashley Melnyk is working in accounting and coaching Vegreville Comp, Kelly DeRoo  and Krista Ready were coaching at Massey High School in Brandon.  Erin Visch-Krahn, Teagan Hunter, Donata Huebert are all playing professionally in Europe.  Alyssa Nanninga our first ever grad is now a Physiotherapist in Edmonton. Not a bad list of Alumni considering we have only been in existence for 7 years.  I am extremely proud of everyone who has ever put on the jersey.

Fight one, Fight All

Teaching confidence and fight.

When I was coming through Jr. Hockey our coach Bruce Osland created a rule for us  “Fight one fight all” This made even the smallest player on the team act tougher.  When you knew that 20 other guys had your back, you would stand up to the biggest guy on the other team.  This year in the NHL it has been highly documented that the Boston Bruins are doing the same.  They are playing extremely tough and solid hockey making them one of the top teams in the NHL.

How does this transfer into volleyball? The above analogy works the same, if a player in volleyball knows the rest of the team has their back then they play bigger and stronger.  The trouble is how to demonstrate that.  I personally feel that if a player makes a bad pass, but the setter can create a decent scoring opportunity from this then the pass is forgotten. If the setter makes a bad play then the attacker makes a good play out of it then the bad set is forgotten.  But if no one attempts to better the ball then everything is magnified.  A great example of this is a low set to a middle hitter and they hit the ball as hard as they can into the bottom of the net.  The middle just magnified the poor set instead of fixing it with a controlled shot. When a team is playing together they work hard to better each ball, relieving the pressure off the player who made an error.

Another way to help build confidence and fight is through the words we use as a team during the match.  I was watching The Canadian Men’s FISU team play this summer and was able to listen to them talk during their matches.  There was a lot of encouraging conversation going on.  When a blocker would find their self one on one, a teammate would yell “get them”.  A person is hitting a trouble ball and the person behind them yells “go after it”.  Little simple things like that would let people know they are together.  Teaching athletes to do this is often difficult. They have to believe in each other. When I was coaching college at Grande Prairie, we were in a provincial championships and one of the opponents said something rude across the net to Jen Telfer.  The rest of the team suddenly rush to her defense.  The team was suddenly at the net and it brought an unbelievable sense of energy for the team.  No longer was it just a playoff game, it was a match to defend Jen.  I am not a believer in trash talking I think you celebrate with your team and earn what comes your way.  The team took celebrating together to a whole new level and we found our fight.  We just rolled over the opponent.

The same thing happened with that team in our National semi-final.  We ended up crossing over against Malasapina from BC.  Their coach had cut one of our more popular players Kelsey Kosick from his Canada games team at their Christmas tryouts early that season.  That semi-final game meant so much more to our team.  We were out to show the coach how wrong he was for cutting her.  It became a revenge match.  As a coach I could feel the difference in the team in warm-up.  Everyone had a higher sense of purpose.  Malasipina had an old team they had groomed this team to win a national championship.  We had a young team but a mission. We ended beating them in four 37-35 with Kelsey getting the winning kill.  That was a team on a mission. When the final ball hit the floor the gym exploded and everyone ran to Kelsey.  It was redemption.

It was a definite feeling of playing for a cause bigger than themselves.  A person would think playing for a championship is enough motivation in itself, but both teams then would be equally motivated.  It is the team that know they can rely on their teammates to help them in any situation, where they know that one error will be solved by another person rising above to help fix that error, instead of letting that error become a distraction to them as well.  You hear it in every championship team “we never gave up on each other.” “WE believed in the team” WE knew we had to do it for them”

That is what I feel “Fight One Fight All” means in volleyball.  The issue is can you teach it, or does it just evolve. WE are tied right now for the last playoff spot.  The first two tie breakers are tied, so this weekend will determine our fate.  Will we be able to find the fight and confidence to acheive our goals?  I know everyone on the team truly has hopes and desires to achieve our goal of making playoffs, so I bet yes.