2003 HIGHLIGHTS

A - Flight Milford M.S.	B-Flight Hollis/Brookline
1. HardRock 14-1 2. HardRock 14-2 3. RI Ram Juniors Blue 4. Seacoast 14-1 5. Lakes 14 Blue 6. HardRock 14-3 7. Cape Cod 14 Red 8. Cape Cod 14 White	1. RI Blast Fireballs 2. Seacoast 14 Mike 3. RI Ram Juniors White 4. Merrimack 14 Maroon 5. North Shore Mustangs 6. Metrowest 14s

The team played Hard Rock-2 the first match of the day. We won the first game 25-14. Things slowed down and the team dropped the next game 11-25. The team was motivated after this sloppy loss to come out fighting and they did! The next match we faced Cape Cod White and beat them up winning 25-7 & 25-16. In our final match of pool play we met the #2 seeded team in the league, Seacoast. After losing to them in the semis the prior week, we came out strong and beat them 25-20 and then annihilated them in the 2nd game 25-7! Our tough serves and team play kept the pressure on, which proved to be too much for Seacoast to handle and they simply fell apart. We advanced to the semis, as the #1 seed from our pool. Where we faced Hard Rock-2. We came out strong, were up by 10 points in game one, but our unforced errors cost us the game. We lost 23-25. It was a disheartening loss. It is rare, in a rally score game, to lose a game once you are up by by this many points. In game 2 we had a tough time composing ourselves and missed crucial points. We were behind to start, but we began to rally back coming within a few points, but with some tough officiating we could not pull ahead for the win. We lost the final game 23-25 as well. This was a tough loss, as the girls played an awesome game against Seacoast the previous game. The girls definitely deserved to advance to the Finals. All in all, we finished 3rd in the league. Congratulations Ashley S, Ashley H, Allie-O, Annika, Lauren S, Kori, & Lauren N.

The RI Jrs. White team ended the season on a high note at the Regional Championships. The White team used the momentum from their success the previous weekend to play volleyball at a much higher level than the other teams in the regional. For the second straight week, the White team was knocked off by the higher seeded, much taller and harder serving, but less skilled Pilgrim team. This time RI Jrs White won 2 games 25-19 and 25-22. After sitting for 2 matches, the White team faced a new opponent in Seacoast. Both games were long battles of frustration and timeouts and neither team looked in sync as a couple servers dominated the match. Unfortunately, Seacoast won both games 25-14, 25-18. After a small break, RI Jrs White was now warmed-up to take on Merrimack 14 Blue. Merrimack, without the same skill or serves as Seacoast was handled with some consistent play by the rams 25-18, 25-15.

Prior to, during, and after the Regionals were over, coach Greg received several accolades from opposing team coaches and parents on the impressive improvement in the white team's level of play. All of which is attributed to the determination and effort of the players. Congratulations to Anna, Margaux, Kelsea, Renee, Tracey, Betsy, and Tess for pushing each other to play superior level volleyball.

This tournament proved to be every bit the challenge as the Blue team expected. It is a representation of the top 8 teams in the league and of who we will face at Regional Championships next weekend. Over-all the Blue team performed very well. We started off slow dropping our first game 20-25 to Hard Rock-2, we then came back and won game 2 in a barnburner timed match of 18-17. In our second match we breezed through Cape Cod - White, 25-11 & 25-16 basically serving them off the court! Our final Pool Play match was against the #1 team in the Region, Hard Rock -1. We won the first game 25-23! Our consistent serving and constant pressure threw Hard Rock - 1 off their game. It was evident they weren't used to being tested like that. We had some periods of letting up throughout the match, but came out on top in game 1. We dropped game 2. Hard Rock came out to play and we couldn't compose ourselves to fight our way out of our deficit. We were seeded 2nd and received a bye into the semi-final match against Sea Coast-1. We were unable to play with the same consistency & pressure we had in our 1st game with Hard Rock -1. When we can play in the play-offs with the same composure, consistency & pressure, we will truly be a top team in the 14s division. This tournament was our preparation for Regional Championships. We learned that when we play "Our Game" we can compete and beat anyone in the League!

"The RI Jrs White team showed a little bit of what is to come in the tournament on Sunday. As the day wore on the White team proved to be by far the most skilled ball handling team at Dean College which made them very competitive throughout the day. The first match of the day was v. Mass Jrs Ruby (19-25) who won on the strength of one really strong player who served most of the points for them. As it turns out Mass Jrs Ruby ended up finishing 1st out of the 7 teams. RI Jrs White won the next 4 matches in a row. Cape Cod White fell 25-17, Cape Cod Blue fell 25-11, Metrowest fell 25-18, and in an upset the White team defeated Pilgrim 25-21. This left the team at 4-1 with one match to play v. RI Blast. As it turned out the winner would finish 2nd on the day. The white team's serve receive was effective all day in getting the ball upfront for a lot of swings and the amount of errors was reduced to serving and attacking for the most part. The communication was good all day and keeping the same lineup helped stabilize the rotations and increased the team's consistency."

-Coach Greg

Congratulations to our Blue Team for their 2nd Place Victory! The Blue Team had a much better tournament this time around. They worked on their consistency & communication and were undefeated into the finals. They beat up on some teams pretty badly, posting scores of 25-22 & 25-17 against Metrowest; 25-9 & 25-16 against Cape Cod Blue; 25-14 & 25-10 against Cape Cod White. The team advanced as the #1 seed into the semis by defeating Cape Cod White 2-0. The pressure mounted as we succumbed 0-2 in the championship game against Cape Cod Red. The day was still a victory as we improved in our consistency & communication skills. We also played very well as a team. As the season approaches our last 2 tournaments we will be ready! We will be working on maintaining "our game" under pressure, so that when we face teams like Cape Cod Red we won't defeat ourselves. We'll be ready!!!! Bring it on!!!

Our White Team went 0-6 and did not advance out of pool play. We are not concerned as this is a young team consisting of many 1st year players. Also, because there is not a 13s division, all of the players are playing in an older division. The league combines all 14s in the same division, instead of having a division for 1st year 14s and a separate division for 2nd year 14s. Pools are made up of upper level teams and lower level teams, making success difficult for newly formed teams. In 2001, our first year, the team started off very slow. We ended up winning Regional Championships and could have gone to Nationals had we felt we were ready for that level of competition. Click here to see highlights of that season 2001. The girls are still learning and improving on their skills. As Coach Greg said, "It was evident that players were more confident on the court and played very well for us. At the end of the day the team was getting more attacks due to being more aggressive on the court."