Overcoming Adversity

Bouncing Back.

Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings- Ralph Blum

This was so true of the Brandon Bobcats this past week and weekend.  A Week ago we were coming off a trouncing by the Winnipeg Wesman.  Everything that we feared about our young team came glaring through.

But to the teams credit they started to search for what the individual could do to make it better.  With the BU Faculty strike on our recovery started with a Monday practice with no coach.  The athlete, captains ran the practice.  It was not a smooth practice.  I had numerous players call in frustration.  They demanded more and better.  As mentioned in a previous blog, As coaches we are Faculty and have been told in no uncertain terms that we cannot coach or be part of anything to do with practice.

The athletes decided  to fight this, they formed a coalition with all the teams.  They organized a formal meeting with both the University and the Union. They called a press conference, did research on why people are declared essential essential so  that we can start coaching again. I was extremely impressed with their determination towards this.   I believe that by standing up for themselves was the start of our turnaround. We are still waiting for the Unions response, the University has said "if the Union is ok with it we are too".  So it is in the hands of the Union executive.

Next as a coaching staff we decided that we need to implement a lot more video.  We wanted to show the athletes the systems and how they looked executing them.  Explain in depth what we are looking for.  Especially since the upcoming weekend we were playing the number 6 ranked team in the country.  As a coaching staff we started to look at potential line-ups.  Which line-up was our most effective?  When we broke it down by set scores we were surprised by which line up was our best.  There is something to be said about the feeling on the court. When each member of the group can help create confidence in each other, then that is often most important factor. Athletes tend to play for each other, especially in tough situations.

WE didn’t spend a lot of time discussing Trinity Western’s offense.  This week we decided it was about us.  In the practices the coaches implemented our serving game plan, blocking and defence plans, without it being in relation to Trinity.  We really emphasized what our vision patterns should be.  When to be stopped on defense.  We want our athletes to stop when the attacker jumps.  We used to say on the attackers arm swing, but we found that we were always late.  We found if we ask for jump then we are stopped well enough to react to the ball.  The biggest difference in experienced athletes and our young players in the range the athlete can go on defense. We felt if we can get our ball control game back to where we believe it should be we had a chance.

Friday was an exciting day for us, everything seem to fall in place. The first set we played strong defense and scored a lot early in transition.  We had challenged Lindsay Mclaughlin, who would start a libero, to have a big presence in the game.  Allow the players around you to feel your presence.  She is normally a focused quiet player, but we need her to change some.  She is our second setter when Kellie digs the ball.  Lindsay took charge and help lead us to a 25-22 win.

The second set was a marathon as both teams went after it. Trinity is ranked number 6 in Canada for a reason.  They jumped out to a 13-10 lead, when Meaghan Roberson had a huge kill for us.  Then Chloe Reimer went back and executed our serve plan and put TWU in trouble. We were tied 15 all.  Now it is a game. Becky had sub in Lexi Loewen in the middle.  Lexi is a bit smaller but fast middle who can close to the outside.  She is a strong outside blocker.  Our serving and offense was keeping the ball outside so this was a great sub. Lexi put up a solid block and we were able to defend around her.

TWU ended up with a 24-22 lead.  Kellie made a courageous dump to get us to within one.  Then Kellie went back and put some tough serves in.  This helped us make some big digs as we tied up the match and went ahead 25-24.  Teams then traded points. We found ourselves tied at 27.  Meaghan our second year middle took over offensively and we were able to get her the ball in transition and we won a big 31-29 set.

After that type of game it is often hard to comeback. Meaghan had found her groove and away we went.  When a player is hot a setter will set them until their arm falls off or the opponent stops them.  Meaghan went off for 6 kills this set.  We won 25-16.  We were carried by a group of 2^nd year players.  Chloe Reimer our libs turned leftside had 13 kills, Tori Dakin had 12 kills on the Rs and Meaghan had 16 kills.  Which really is exciting for our future.  Of course it was more than those three as we needed some strong leadership in tough situations from other players. 

We now had rebounded well, the test will be tomorrow.  Can we do it again?  TWU is a well coached team they will make adjustments and we will have to find another way to win.

I put a video of Meaghan and Alicia Perrin going head to head.  Alicia played on the FISU games team this summer.  

Here us the box score link    http://bit.ly/uvQiOm