September 22 – “Lady Rockets Win”

We did something yesterday that we haven’t done in a very long time.  We went to a junior high level sporting event.  Last time we did that (that I can remember) it was a boys’ basketball game and I was the coach.  This time it was girls’ volleyball and I was a spectator.  Good thing, too.  What I know about the rules of girls’ volleyball could fit on the head of a pin.  Well, maybe a fat pin.  I did learn one rule when I went to O’Connell’s high school JV game last week.  If you are serving and toss the ball in the air, you either have to hit it then or let it hit the ground before you touch it again.  Don’t catch the silly thing or it goes as a failed serve.  Weird, huh?

The junior high game was a display of wildly varying skill levels primarily due to the girls’ maturation levels.  Some of them were big and strong (Read here, a host of players on the opposing  team).  Others, like Jada (who we came to see) and her teammates, were tinier and more petite.  Some could power-serve the ball with a mighty overhead swing (Read here, the bad guys).  Others could barely make it to the net with all the oomph an underhand serve could muster (Read here … well, you get the picture).  At the outset the good guys appeared to be sorely outgunned).  Much of the time, whoever managed to get the serve over the net won a point.  But yesterday there were several really good volleys.  Jada’s squad scored some points.  In fact one girl had a string of 11 points in a row during one game, with her basic, underhand, get the ball over the net serve.  They won a game.  They lost a game.  And the match went into the deciding third game.  And in thrilling comeback fashion, the good guys won.  Oh, and that’s when yet another volleyball rule jumped out at us.  If a match goes to three games, the third game only goes to 15 points.  If I keep watching these volleyball games, I’m gonna need a bigger pinhead.

Well, to sum it all up, out of my vast array of volleyball-ic knowledge, I have to say that I am really proud of Jada and the rest of the Odyssey Lady Rockets. 

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 says, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Father, thank you for the chance those girls have to play a game they enjoy and learn some things about being on a team in the process.  Amen.