Words from Nichelle

Coming in as a freshmen I was really nervous about being way up here in Morris. I didn’t know anyone on the team and I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, over the weeks the team has really bonded and now instead of being strangers we’ve all become good friends.

This weekend varsity went to the St. Ben’s tournament and jv went to Fergus Falls for a match. For JV, we played a really exciting match that ended with us winning in five games. We played poorly in the first game, but made up for that in the next four. Our three fans from Morris didn’t even compare to the huge, loud crowd of parents and friends that supported Fergus Falls.

Our excitement and enthusiasm helped us out a lot during the match. Every kill, ace and block we made had us screaming in excitement. We soon found out that Fergus didn’t really seem to like how excited and loud we got. It just brought them down, but that just encouraged us to get louder and push ourselves. At the start of the fifth game we knew we wanted the win more. It was close the whole way, and for a time we led by two or three points, but they caught up. From then on it was point for point. If we got behind by one we would get a point back to tie it up. No matter what, we weren’t going to give up and just accept losing. We kept the intensity high and never quit swinging and playing aggressive. The final score of the fifth game was 21-19.

At Fergus you could see how much we had improved since our first game in Jamestown. There’s a lot more communication and we are getting used to playing with each other. Even if when we fall behind, there is constant encouragement coming from the players on the court and off. We knew we couldn’t let ourselves get down when games became close. If a mistake was made we knew we had to forget about it and push harder on the next one.

I’m looking forward to this week's games. We just need to come out and start the game with the same intensity we played with in the fourth and fifth games. It should be a good week of volleyball ahead for both varsity and junior varsity.

Nichelle Grage