Girls Varsity Volleyball Team Play in Tournament in Miami
On October 5-7th, the Timber Creek Girls Varsity Volleyball Team played in the 11th annual Smoothie King Invitational in Miami, Florida. Going in, they were ranked number one seed, and at the end of the tournament, they placed 6th in the tournament
The varsity team has been very successful this season with thirteen wins and only one loss to Lyman High School, and are undefeated in district games. They are 17th in the state out of 642 teams. Going into the tournament, Coach Cameron Stevens felt pretty good. “I feel like we’re playing pretty good volleyball right now and I’m excited to get down there and see what we can do,” said Coach Stevens, “It’s not going to be about winning the tournament, but about improving on things to get ready for district games.” Coach Stevens also said, “I think we’re a very good serving team, we serve aggressive and get teams out of system a lot which is big for us, and we are pretty good at putting free balls away when we get our opportunities,” which can clearly be shown in their team stats. The team has an overall serving percentage of 90.3 and a hitting percentage of .302 which are very good numbers for a high school team.
From a players point of view going into the big tournament, sophomore Gabrielle Ong who is a setter stated, “I feel prepared for this weekend because we have practiced a lot and worked on things that we used to struggle with. For me, I’ve worked a lot on defense.” Ong also believes that the team will do great in Miami saying, “I think we will do really well this weekend because we have been doing good at all our games. I think it will be good competition for us.”
On day one, they swept North Miami Beach 25-6, 25-5, and beat Chaminade-Madonna 25-10, 25-22, but lost to St. Brendan with a score of 17-25, 18-25. On day two, they played in the silver bracket and won their first game to Cypress Bay 25-20, 25-20, but lost their second game to Westminster Christian with a tight score of 20-25, 24-26.
The team had a great time in Miami together, and they also played very well. Freshman Alyssa Hall stated, “My favorite game out of the whole tournament was the last game on the last day. Even though we lost, we had multiple hustle plays and we had so much energy. Overall, it was a great atmosphere to play in.” Senior Jackie Farris felt the same way saying, “We built better team chemistry at the tournament and we also had to deal with adversity since our starting setter wasn’t there and we dealt with that good.” This was the last high school tournament for Farris to compete in and she is the only senior on the team. “It was bittersweet getting to play in my last tournament,” said Farris.
After the tournament, the Timber Creek Varsity team played their Senior Night game against the Masters Academy on Tuesday, October 9th, and won three sets to zero, and then played Apopka High School on October 11th winning three sets to one. The girls now head to districts starting Tuesday, October 16th. Good luck girls!