(Cayleigh Griffin, a senior on the Trinity Catholic High School volleyball team, will be blogging about her experiences this season.)
By Cayleigh Griffin
As my teammates are off at school, working hard in the classroom and on the court, I am stuck in bed for the third day in a row with what seems to be a mild case of the flu. Although I just want to get to school officially (did I really say that….) and go back to practice, it is not worth the risk of infecting my classmates, especially my teammates.
This past weekend, our team had the opportunity to scrimmage King, Stamford, Barlow and Greenwich. We definitely have a few kinks to work out, but our overall progress is moving in the right direction.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how effective our communication worked on the court. This enabled us to find open spots, pass successfully and choose the type of hit that would position the ball for perfect placement. Every player in the rotation was instrumental in this effort to communicate.
In one of our matches, the team seemed to be wilting under the pressure from our opponent. Nothing we did seemed to be effective for us and the frustration could be read on all of our faces and in our body language.
At the conclusion of that match, Coach Marge introduced the idea of crafting a cheer. If you are unfamiliar with volleyball, this may be new to you, but cheering tends to play a significant role during games.
Although cheering can change the mood and momentum of a game, it has not been embraced at Trinity Catholic for many years. So with a few raised eyebrows, we reluctantly listened, decided to give it a shot, and ultimately embraced the idea.
Prior to the next match, the six seniors on the court came up with a creative “cheer,” with a twist. It seemed a little corny at first but our bench added clapping and chants.
To our collective surprise, we played much better once our cheers started. While our “cheer” needs a little refining, it pumped everyone up, our attitudes lightened and our focus shifted back to the task at hand….winning the match!
If you are curious about the cheer that lifts our spirits, I would encourage and highly suggest that you attend a game to find out! I’m off to make a bowl of soup, but our season opener is next week – GO TC VOLLEYBALL!!
