Kayda's first high school volleyball season

Kayda started the season playing JV.  They had her playing as an outside hitter.  She played all the way around the court.  With a small school comes a relatively small program.  We had just enough girls for Varsity, JV and C team.  

This year ended up being a hot mess of injuries, particularly for Varsity.  Two girls had to take a time out for injuries shortly into the season.  They pulled Kayda up to Varsity as a defensive specialist.  She was assigned to Sam as her back court player.  She did well.  She loves the speed of the varsity games vs the JV games.  She was probably their second best defensive player.  She was playing back court full time for a few games.  Then we played the hardest team in our league (who ended up taking third in state) and the team was not doing well.  Part way through the match, Kayda's front court player landed on someone's foot after jumping for a block.  We found out later that she fractured her ankle.  Coach had Kayda play all the way around the court.  I thought it was hilarious.  Our little 5'4" girl playing varsity front court.  When she jumps she can get her fingers about an inch (2 on a good day) above the net.  After that, for whatever reason, Kayda got pulled.  From there on out she didn't get much play time on varsity.  The coach started doing some things that really confused me (and were unsuccessful).  Things like keeping some front court players on the court for the full rotation, despite the fact that they were slow and unsuccessful in the back court.  It became a very frustrating season.  I want my kid to play because I KNOW she's good.  If she wasn't going to get to play on varsity, then put her back on JV!  I don't care what team.  Just let her play!  The problem was a player is limited to how much they can play per week.  So she would get one game with JV to preserve the rest of time for Varsity, in case she was needed.

"Tiny" in the front court. 

The team went to Spokane to play.  Kayda didn't get much court time but she had a blast anyway. 

At the end of the season we ended up being a "wild card" at districts.  We won the first match.  The second was a disaster.  Kayda got in for a very brief time window.  The girls that were playing had been played almost the entire match before and played the entire match despite being visibly exhausted and quickly getting worse.  You could literally see all the energy go out of them.  Despite this, no changes were made.  Like I said, a very frustrating season to watch. Even if it's not my kid, be responsive to what is happening on the court!  Be flexible and ready to make changes as needed. 

Overall, Kayda was great and grew a lot.  She was getting better and better in the back court and has decided that's what she enjoys most.  She is really interested in the libero position.  This position is an entirely defensive position.  They play back court for two different people, though they can only serve one rotation.  This means, if used to their maximum capacity, they are actively playing all but one serving rotation the entire set.  

The booster club paid for the team to go watch a Huskies game.  The girls had a great time and it was really cool to watch that level of play in person.