McKenna's experience on the LJH volleyball team this years has been so different from her experience last year. Again, we've had to balance soccer and volleyball...sometimes leaving early from volleyball games to get to soccer games and sometimes missing Monday soccer trainings to be at volleyball games. Ray has been phenomenal through it all and is just great with what McKenna can give and when she can be to soccer trainings. Coach Stout on the other hand is a little more difficult to read.
Kenna began the season playing full jv games and doing awesome. In one of the first games she scored a huge slew of points and won the game with her final serve...it was a great start! More games like that and then she was moved to a few varsity games, maybe only the last 5 to 10 minutes but she had arrived on the varsity team and she was thrilled. Life was good and all was well. Then came a game where she didn't go in for varisty and wasn't put in for the jv game, either...she just sat there until the 2nd jv game (which is just a fun game) and finally was put in for the last 30 seconds. What?? She didn't understand why. Their next game was against Syracuse Jr and she was excited and nervous because Conner goes to Syracuse and he planned to be there to watch her play (and so did Carrie Anderson and Conner's mom, Trudy). Well, Kenna didn't get any play time at that game either and I'm was fuming!! Kenna was visibly sad and as we drove to her soccer game I counseled her to talk to coach the next day and ask what she could do to get more playing time or what she could improve on...at first she said no and then I we did a little role playing with me as coach and I think she felt a little more comfortable about how to approach coach (glad it's her and not me...there's no way I'm talking to coach).
The next day before practice, she mustered up the courage to talk to coach. Coach said she was doing great and was an asset to the team but maybe she could talk more on the court. So she did this in practice and felt confident again...until the next game when she was looked over again and sat there until the last few minutes of the 2nd jv game. Aaagh!
Then at the beginning of this week coach asked her if I could take volleyball pics of the team again like last year...my gut reaction was "No way! Why do I want to take my time taking pictures and editing them for coach when Kenna has sat on the bench more than half of the season even after giving her all to this team, being to every after school practice, every morning practice and every game, and missing lots of soccer trainings in the meantime?? But I figured I needed to talk to Garrett before making my final decision because deep down I knew he would know what I should do and of course that would be taking the pictures and being happy about it. He always brings me down when I'm losing it!! :)
So, in about an hour, I am heading over to the school today to take the team pictures and individual pictures of all 25 girls on the team...and I'm going with a (half) smile on my face...partyly because Ashlyn really wants to try out for the LJH volleyball team next year and so Coach may be a part of my life for a few more years...
