Cheeseballing

So once again, only around seven people showed up to our morning practice, from 8-11. It was kind of strange having three setters(myself included) and only four hitters.

Basically, we worked on tipping and rollshotting(a hit where you hit it with your palm and then push up for top spin) to short middle and to the deep corners. Because we had so few people, we kept on going through the line very fast and everyone ended up extremely tired before we started our little 2 v 6 game against coach Allen and Gerard. We played two games, one to twenty-five and one to fifteen.

In the first game, we got beaten(we almost always lose the first game). Allen was hitting most of the spots he showed us were open. One shot was pretty scary, the block did not get up in time and the ball whizzed past my head into the corner. I didn't even have a chance to get my hands up. Our main problem is we were not moving to the ball fast enough. William was not as alert as he usually was(we all could tell he was pretty tired).

And then Allen has been picking on Jake, the big white man, always placing the ball right in front of him where he can't get to it. It looks like Jake is moving in slow motion when he tries to dive for the ball, which almost never works for him. Our defense was pretty sluggish. Usually its the best part of our game, but not today.

So then, to try and get some quick and easy points while I was setting, I kept dumping the ball, or turning and then doing a light set just over the net. If Eric Chung were still here, he would undoubtedly being calling out the cheeseball.

Cheeseballing is anything "cheap" to get a point, like dumping. In the second game, everyone started doing it. Allen kept hitting it right back to the server, with much success. I dumped a few balls. And most of the other guys were finally hitting the open spots like they were supposed to.

I think its funny though, because usually we are not hitting the open spots, even when we work on them the entire practice. We were just so tired that the quick and easy points available we immediately taken. But were always supposed to play that way. We should more often.

Yesterday, Aric Anderson, the Savannah coach and good friend of Allen, was at practice and said the Whitney coach thinks were only going to dump and tip the entire game. We don't usually so I think he will be in for a surprise, especially now we can hit and cheeseball whenever we want.

Looking forward to the Whitney game, they only have one good outside hitter so we should be able to beat them. We have been doing a good job hitting this year, better than the last. We just got a get our plays down and we should be able to hang with most other teams.

-Seth