The Abbotsford News‘s new high school sports blog, Students of the Game, features local athletes sharing their experiences and unique perspectives. Today, Mennonite Educational Institute multi-sport star Tessa Ratzlaff reflects on the Eagles senior girls volleyball team’s recent results and the value of taking on a ‘no risk, no reward’ mentality.
Throughout these past couple weeks I believe that our senior girls volleyball team is starting to show more of a team effort, and grow to our potential.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend we spent our time playing in a tournament in Edmonton. We started off the first day with four games, and the second day we played two, ending with three wins and three loses. I definitely think that during this overnight tournament the team started to bond more both on and off the court.
On Oct. 25 and 26 our team played in the B.C. Christian Schools tournament at Abbotsford Christian School. The first day we brought our intensity and won all three games which put us first in our pool. The next day we won our first two games, which brought us to the semifinals. We battled hard but unfortunately lost to Kelowna Christian, who went on to take first place in the tournament. In the bronze game our team fought hard, but lost by two points in the third set to Surrey Christian. We finished in fourth, but I thought this tournament was definitely a great time for our team to find our energy and hunger for the game.
I felt a lot more competitiveness from the girls, which is a huge aspect to wanting to win. Instead of playing it easy we started to take more risks, which then led to more rewards. “No risk, no reward” is our team motto, and this is something that we are learning to apply more to our game.
When we came back to our league games, I felt that the girls had more confidence in each other as a team and individually. Fraser Valleys are now approaching in the next couple weeks. This means we need to bring our highest intensity and competitiveness to each game, because I know everyone on the team wants to make provincials. It will be tough, but I know we have the ability and skill to succeed as a team.
