SME WINS - SME WINS !!
It would probably sound better if John Sterling did his famous "The Yankees Win" proclamation, but just the same, the boys were on top of the world today when they went 7-0 for the tournament and won it all.
This years participants were (left to right):
Top Row: Peter J., Anthony B., Michael P. Wyatt W. Marc G. and Coach Jeff Hetrick
Bottom Row: Spenser H., Michael S., Jake C. and Alex H.
I was extremely proud of the boys for today's match play and their tenacity to stick with it and get this done. Especially that everyone played their part in this win to a man! From the starting 6 to Anthony B. and Peter J. who came in and played back row and had to dig out some tough serves and hits and to Wyatt W. who came in and played front row rotations all day long and made some stellar plays on the net in both blocking and hitting. I only had us missing 3 serves the entire 3 game finals match even though we were hitting the serves with some great velocity. Our setters were phenominal and that made our hitters equally phenominal ! All the boys dove for balls and played tough even after faltering in the first game of the championship match and getting blown out 25-6, but they came back and believed in themselves and took the next two games to win.
We played St. Andrews #2 in the first round and won those games 25 - 15 and 25 - 13. Marc G. led the way serving in game #1 with 10 serves in and 4 of those for ace. In game #2, Alex H. led with 6 in and 3 for ace followed by Anthony B. with 5 in and Jake C. with 4 in.
In the semi-finals we faced St. Andrews #1 for the second time in the day as we faced them earlier in pool play. We won those games 25 - 15 and 25 - 18 to advance to the finals. Jake C. led the serving with 8 in followed by both Marc G. and Mike P. with 4 in each. In this first game the boys played superb defense as after their first server, they only allowed St. Andrews 1 serve point 3 different times, otherwise everything was a side-out. In the second game, serving led by Jake C. with 9 in and his last 7 in a row to close out the game! That was followed by Marc G. with 7 in, Spenser H. with 4, and all three boys, Mike P., Jake C. and Alex H. made 3 in with all three of Mike P.'s for ace. After 6 servers each, we were actually down 14 - 17 and that's when they came to life. Mark G. made the next 3 points and we sided them out to make it 18 - 18. Then Jake C. served the next 7 and the boys backed it up defensively to take the game to 25.
In the finals, the boys all of the sudden struggled defensively and failed to side-out the St. Peter and Paul's #3, 4 or 5 servers for a total of 19 points. We lost the first game 25 - 6! Fortunately, I was able to get them to put that out of their mind and move on and they responded well and went on to win the second game 25 - 21. For the first 9 SS P&P servers in this game, we sided them out every time except for 2 and then we only allowed 1 point each time - a stellar turn around! We did have to hang on in the end and re-group as they ran off points 17 - 21 on their 11th server and we sided out their 12th server for the game! We only missed 2 serves this game and had another team effort in serving led by Mike P. with 6 in followed by Mike S. and Jake C. both with 5. Everyone was striking their serves hard to boot.
In the third and final game we won 25 - 20 to win the match. Again, out of the first 7 servers, we sided them out 3 times for no points, 3 times for 1 and only one time for 2 points so we were leading 16 - 13 after each team had served 7 times. In serves number 8, they made 3 to tie it then Jake C. stepped up and we made the next 4 to take a lead of 21 - 17. In servers #9 and #10 we both traded side-outs for 23 - 19. In servers #11, they scored a point then we sided them out and went on to make our serve point for the game winner! Jake C. led this game in serving with 10 in followed by Spenser H. with 5 and 3 of those were for ace.
At the end of the day, the boys learned that if you play tenacious defense and side-out your opponent, you win more often than not. They key was that we did a stellar job of setting the ball into positions to hit. Give St. Peter and Paul credit, they were the better team at digging out hits and they dug out and returned many more than we forced errors on, but we just kept coming back and eventually the hitting would force an error or we would place the ball in the court where they could not return it. Many rallys went back and forth 3 or 4 times each way, but we just kept hitting and blocking or attempting the block.
Now it will be up to the boys to stay focused and attempt to carry this play into the Diocesan League Playoffs in 10 days. All statistics are found in the Menu > Game Articles > Cardinal O'Hara Tournament or click here.
As I said the boys were over-joyed to pull this out and win this tournament and below you see as they celebrate.
