I just joined a volleyball team down at York, called the “Yorktowne 14-Blue.” My dad and I missed tryouts, so we went to the first practice as a tryout for me. That day there were drills for passing, hitting and serving. After practice, the coach told my dad that I made the team.


Practices were on Sundays from 2:00-4:00pm and Wednesdays from 5:30-7:00pm. The next practice, we learned our positions and rotations. All of this was new to me, but not everyone else. My teammates are Jake, Jason, Josh D, Josh R, Austin, Kyle, Justin, Eric, and Ian. All of them have been playing for over 3 years.


The rotations were confusing at first, but I got use to them with each practice. Coach mentioned we were to compete in a 2-day tournament in two weeks at Rochester, New York. Every practice, we just worked on our rotations because we still didn’t know them. With only one more practice until the tournament, we walked through everything.


The drive took 5 hours and 10 minutes to get to the hotel. We met the team in the lobby to start the first day of the tournament. This day is difficult to not have our setter, Josh D. His dad was sick and kept having to go to the hospital to get treated.


Coach told us our schedule. We alternated between working and playing the whole day. When we work it means to help the referees with line judges, scoring, libero check, and substitutions. Line judges determine if it’s in or out; scoring is to add each point to whoever scored; and libero check and substitutions write who went in for whom.


There were 3 pools of 3 teams. We won our first 3 matches. When we played CAVE it was crazy to be the last match of the day. They won the first game, but we won the second game. This match went to the third game up to 15.the whole game went back and forth, tied at 15. If we scored they would, but we ended up losing 20-18.


Once we got to the hotel, we had a little break and went out to eat at a place called The Dinosaur Barbeque. The walk was about 2 miles from the hotel. Along the way, the team was throwing snowballs at each other and sight-seeing on our way.


By the time we got there, the wait was about 20-30 minutes. When our name was called we had a table for 21. The waiter came and took our orders, then gave us a sharpie to write on the walls of the bathroom. I wrote “GO REDSKINS.” The walls were filled with everything.


Once we got back to the hotel, we decided to hang out the lobby until about 10-10:15. I woke up at 6:30 to get ready for today. My dad and I had to pack our belongings because after the tournament we’re going straight home.


The schedule for today was just to play, work and then they would seed us for the playoffs. Our first match we played was against the TITANS. They won the first game by 7 but we won the second by 3. The match went to the third game.


In the third game it was at 13 and needed 15 to win. Austin set it to Jake for the 1-point lead. Later Austin set it to josh R for the game winning point.


After we worked, we played a team called PACE. They won the first game and it was tight in the second. PACE was up by 7 with only 2 more to win the game. The next point was an ace, but the next serve he missed. On our serve we made, and as they hit the ball back over, the ball was deep in the corner and landed in. We lost the match and out of the tournament.


Coach told us that he thought we did good overall and little things to improve on, also to get ready to play the next practice. On the way home I called my family and they were proud of me. I had to tell everybody about my experience playing in a tournament.