Hylte... GRRRRR!

Well, it was a disappointing 4-hour trip out to Hylte yesterday. We'd had a pretty decent week of practice, and though I wasn't quite feeling 100% (slightly under the weather, and sore knees) I felt as though we were in a good position to take down top-ranked Hylte.

Unfortunately from the very start things looked grim. Believe it or not they jumped out to a 10-1 lead in the first set. It was frightening almost how luckily they were able to dig balls and time after time smack them to the floor, uncontested. They were a well-oiled machine just playing good, consistent volleyball. We finally managed to side-out and actually did a pretty good job battling back to gain some momentum. Obviously the set was far out of reach though, and we lost 19-25.

It's incredible how easy it is to play good, consistent volleyball though when everyone plays "good enough" and everyone contibutes. No one stood out in particular, but we played great sideout volleyball in sets 2 and 3 winning both of them 25-21, 25-22 respectively. The highlight of those sets came at the final point of set 3 when I was one-on-one blocking their best hitter and made a huge move into the seem and BA-BOOM - THUNDERCLAMP FOR THE WIN! I wasn't hitting particularly well and it was good to finally do something noteworthy.

Set 4 was a display of solid sideout volley. Each team traded serves and smashes, blocks and errors. We passed extraordinarily well. I maybe had one ball that wasn't perfect, though I can't actually recall one. I actually served pretty well too. No aces, but I did crack a couple and surprised even myself. It came down to the final swings and we lost 22-25 sending the match into game 5.

We haven't had very much success winning 5-game matches, but I suppose we are getting better. We won the first point when I got a set from Dave that I buried down the line - you have to win the first point to give yourself a CHANCE in the 5th in my book. We traded point 'til about 7 when they jumped ahead two, 7-9. No good. They were a few spirts that looked like we might make it back into the game, and even the final ball had Tarik's hands all over a big kill on a block that landed just out of bounds. We lost 13-15. Truly a bummer.

It was a good showing for us, as obviously we weren't expected to win, but it sure would have been nice to come out on top of this one. The worst part was the drive home. I dozed off a few times, only to wake up at everyone one of our 4 stops (Why so many? who knows??? I just wnated to get home). It was a late night and I didn't feel well at all by the time we got back. I didn't sleep very well last night either. I was up at 8am and couldn't go back to sleep. Today is our day off and it'll be a long day of laying in bed with the computer on my lap.

Anyway, we're moving forward. We play Sater on Thursday night and have the weekend off (YAY!).