On October 24th, the 7th-grade volleyball B team headed to Fort Riley Middle School for a volleyball tournament. This was pretty nerve-racking since at our last tournament, we hadn’t done so well. I never would’ve expected to find out what happened at the end!

Our first game was at around 8:30, which meant we had to get to the middle school at almost 6:00 am in the morning to get there soon enough. The bus ride wasn’t all that terrible, it was just a bit chilly. As we got closer to our destination, nerves and emotions started getting stronger. As we walked inside things seemed to die down a little bit. The first team we played was Junction City. We weren’t all that nervous to play them. Even though they had beat us last time, we had improved a lot since then. Before we knew it, it was time to warm up and then play. We were playing really well and we ended up winning the first set! The second set was over quickly and we won that one too! I personally felt really relieved and happy, I’m pretty sure my teammates felt the same. 

Second game: we played Abilene. Never had we once played this team so we didn’t know what to expect. Knowing how well we played in the last round; we thought we were completely capable of winning this match. We won the first set, they won the second set, and we won the third set! What a relief. Our team was going strong 3-1. If we kept this up we could end up winning the tournament! Third game: we played Eisenhower. This match was a bit more stressful. Before this, they had always beaten us and we had never been ahead of them in a set. Not this game though! We won the first set and then the second. Our serves were amazing and our coach was really impressed! Now we were at 5-1! Only 2 more games to go..

Fourth game: We played Shawnee Heights. Oh boy were we nervous about this one. Shawnee Heights beat us at our first game. We thought we could beat Shawnee too but unfortunately, they had won both sets. I will say they had great serves and passes, but there is always room for improvement; and we had improved a lot! All of us were ready to go home and get this over with. But for the 5th game, we ended up playing Abilene again to fight for 3rd! We had won this before so I was confident we could do it again. This was probably the most intense game we had ever played. We won the first set, Abilene won the second set. This meant we had to play the third set to see if we would end up winning third place at our tournament. Point by point we kept taking the lead but they were catching up fast. 23 to 24. 24 to 25. We ended up getting the last point, winning 24 to 26. 

We ended up getting third place at the Fort Riley tournament! This was a super fun experience knowing that I have never played volleyball before the start of this season. If there is something that you want to try but aren’t confident enough, do it anyway! I promise you won’t regret it. Thank you for checking this out!  Maybe there has been a moment when you have gone through the same thing I did.