Simone Lee is a member of Milwaukee Sting 16 Gold and is one of 24 players
who has been invited to Colorado Springs and the U.S. Olympic Training Center to
compete for a spot on the USA Volleyball Youth National Team. The 12 members
selected to the team will then compete at the NORCECA Youth Championships in the
Dominican Republic at the end of June. Lee will be blogging for the Badger
Region during her experiences.
6/2/2012
Today was the last full day at the US Olympic Training Center! I'm
so glad that I have made so many new friends.
And I know our friendships will last a lifetime! This blog, again, will
be split into three sections: the morning, afternoon, and evening sessions.
Morning Session: During the morning session we started the same as
always, with our dynamic warm-up. After that we were split up into three teams
and played six on six until one team reached 15. Everyone was so ‘on’ this
morning. We had to really step up to
score. At one point the coaches stopped
play to ask why there was a side out. The
answer was the setter and hitter didn’t keep doing what was scoring. Duh!
After that we all played a lot smarter.
It really works! The team that
was off did a serve, pass, and hit drill. The coaches had wipe boards on each
court to track passing: 1-2-3. The best passers moved up to the next court. Soon after, we split up onto three courts by
positions. Since I am an outside/right side hitter I went with the
outsides/right sides. We played six on six the whole time. To help the coaches
evaluate the girls, they had a guy taking stats on all the passes, hits, blocks
and digs by player. Then we ended the
session with a cool down. We went to lunch in the cafeteria and rested up for
the afternoon session. Did I mention how
good the food is here?!
Afternoon Session: To start the afternoon session we, again,
started with our dynamic warm-up. Then
we did ball control which consisted of passing back and forth, setting back and
forth, and peppering back and forth. Because this isn’t a camp, we didn’t work
on skills. We went straight into six on
six. Just like before, every contact was tracked. Coach stopped us to tell us how many times we
got a side out. We weren’t getting
enough to win matches. And Coach said
winning matches is the goal! So we all
worked harder to score on every attack, not just get the ball back over the
net—even though we were tired. We played
on two different courts for quite some time but, the time flew past so quickly
that it didn't seem long at all!! We soon did some serve receive and ended like
we always do, with a cool down. Cool down was doing an Indian run (the run was
more like a jog) like yesterday.
Evening Session: Again, it
was a really competitive session. For
our warm up we did triangle setting (ask your girls about this one). We played
six on six but only the outside could score any points. It was a tough drill
because the outside hitters had to pass out of serve receive and then go and
hit the ball. We had another hitting competition with this drill. The best hitters kept playing until the best
two hitters were left. The best hitters
were the ones who could score the most on their attacks out of ten or 20
balls. If the defense picked it up then
it was a wash and the opposite side got the ball. The middles and right sides
did a great job blocking some of these hard hit balls!! It was really good because
the hitters had to come up with different ways to score because the blocks and
digs were getting better and better! The
coaches then split us up into three teams and we all competed against one
another like we did in the earlier sessions. The team that was off was doing
serve receive and hitting outside and middle again. One team won all their
games. One team only won once. Like I said before, everything was
tracked.
But all in all, the last session was a great session! Since
tomorrow is our last day at the Training Center, we really need to stay focused
and positive. They will tell us the
results tomorrow after we have our morning session. Everyone did really
well. The coaches have a tough job ahead
of them! Only 12 girls will be chosen
for a spot on the Girls Youth National Team. Once we know, we’ll all breathe a sigh of
relief. Then we will all go to lunch and
head on home.
This has been the most challenging experience in my life so
far. Thanks for joining me on this
journey!
