France

Finally chalk one in the win column.

We played France last night.  They are a tall physical team, and play a high ball offense.  During our video session we saw that Poland scored a bit on 61's ( Shots directly  behind the setter).  So our game plan was to run at the seams with the middles early then to go outside after they move their block inside.  But for this to happen we need to pass well.

We started Jaki, Krista again at right side, Jaimie , and Alicia got her first start of the tournament, Marie Sophie and Shanice at leftside.  The first set didn't start out so well for us as we found ourselves down  5-0 when we had to call our first time out.  They were serving jump floats again from the back line and we struggled with that.  After a timeout everyone in the world is told to take a little bit off their serve and put it in.  Well this helped us as we made a great pass and Alicia got us on the score board.  We then settled down and proceeded to work our way back until we even it up at 21.  Then proceded to assert ourselves and won 27-25 on a huge stuff block by Marie Sophie.

The second set  our passing troubles returned.  We had a hard time just getting the ball to go forward...We really let this error enter into our psyche.  We started to look down, our body language showed we were in trouble.  We made some energy subs late in the match and a chance for some of the team to refocus.  Kristi had a huge kill for us and brought some sparkle back into our eyes.  But we lost 25-13.

In between sets we talked about not letting errors define you.  It is the action you do after the error that defines you.  We also talked about how to score or help ourselves score off of 2 passes.  Let just get the ball going forward on serve reception.  Set the ball 2 meters off the net and a little inside.  Give our outsides some angles to play with.  Also start using the back row ball, especially our c ball(back row Rightside) to keep their blockers honest.  They were just overloading our leftsides.  

We were down 8-7 at the first technical but kept it close.  Then suddenly we understood the change.  2 passes became shots and high hands for us which put them terribly out of system then they ran the ball back, we dug it in system and bang middles scored on 61's.  Jaimie then took control of the match at the net,  3 stuff blocks in a row a kill on a 61 then on a step.  Their front row didn't know what hit them.  The rest of the set we played with energy and confidence.  25-18 we won.

The fourth set was much of the same as we now were scoring off of some 2 passes and the passers started to find rhythm with the serve and we were in system a lot more.  The fourth set was never in jeopardy.  We won it again 25-18  Jaimie had 7 kills and 8 stuff blocks, almost all of them the last 2 sets.  

I believe this was a huge learning experience for us.  At the end of the match I compared us to the movie 8 mile.  We found our confidence and our voice, look out now as we are ready to battle.
 
We are on the B side but want to finish as high as we can, we have a day off to rest and recover, then Sweden tomorrow.  

Trinity Western News Release

GAME STATISTICS (pdf download)