Aces High

Today was Natalie’s end-of-season volleyball tournament. Her team is called The Aces. In the parking lot I noticed a family that really loved their volleyball. Their van had the obligatory logos on the rear window, a volleyball-themed license plate frame, and a bumper sticker that read, “My dog is a Setter named Spike.”

I also noticed that they had twin girls about Natalie’s age. Maybe we’d face them that day. I didn’t have to wait long; they were our first opponent. Of course, the mom, let’s call her Kandi, was the coach and she was all business, kind of “over-the-top-serious.” These are 9-year old girls playing rec league. Every team we’ve seen (including us) has a “just bump it back” strategy. Kandi had them doing setting drills. I think her twin girls were named Karcha and Kiraly.

I will say that the team had a very positive attitude. When the first girl served the ball into the net, the other five bounded to her side, screaming encouragement and giving high fives. Every time. Ironically, if the girl served an ace, she only got a nod of acknowledgement. Serve it into the back of your teammate’s head? Total euphoria with palms flying. “You go girl!” I think one poor player was getting a complex.

The format was best two sets of three, and the Congratulators won the first set. Kandi still wasn’t smiling. This was a war, not just a battle. Our girls got the upper hand in the second set, and on set point, it was like 14-4, just before our girl served, Kandi called a dramatic time out. She was trying to ice our server like a placekicker in football. Seriously?

Our server was unfazed and we won the set. We also won the next one and advanced to the second round. Kandi was not happy. I hope little Karcha got dinner tonight.

Our second opponent looked more formidable. They were the top seed. One girl was like 5’8”, 220? Not really. Probably 5'5" 130 but still, next to the other girls she was a woman-child. I said to Kara, “She’s 9?!” Kara said it was a league for 4^th and 5^th graders, so she could be 11. Eleven? She could be 18 and just having a hard time with 5^th grade. I had two reasons for believing she was older than her peers (besides her size). Her warm-up jacket had seven championship patches from the 4^th/5^th grade league (going back to ’94) and when I walked past her she was humming an REO Speedwagon tune.

She was good too. Real good. (She also had a patch from Beijing ’08.) Fortunately our girls just hit the ball to her less-skilled teammates and won in straight sets. It totally shocked everyone. Our girls played so well and were so excited to advance to the finals.

In the finals we met our match and were handily defeated. The most interesting twist occurred when the referee stopped play for five minutes to discuss potential “delay of game” penalties. Oh well, we were a four seed and took second place. Natalie was so pleased and very excited. All the way home she rehearsed how she would tell her siblings.

I did mention to her that if there were cuteness trophies, she would have got 1^st place. She smiled knowingly.