Tryout process

      Every year if you want to be on a Maine Juniors team, you go through the process of tryouts.  Tryouts last for two hours, and they go on for two weekends.  Maine Juniors breaks up the tryouts by age groups.  Within an age group, they split everybody into two groups.  This year about 100 girls wanted to be on a U14 Maine Juniors team which is the highest amount of people that have ever tried out for U14 teams.
      When you arrive at tryouts, you have to give sign a couple of papers and check in.  They give you a shirt with a random number; they also put tape on your shirt depending on what teams you want to tryout for.  For example, I wanted to be on either gold or silver so I had gold and silver duct tape on my shoulder.  After you check in and get a shirt, the first thing you usually do is play a couple games as a whole group such as queens or doghouse.  These two games are to get everybody warmed up.  Next they split everyone into two groups.  One group does spotlight, which I will explain in the next paragraph, and the other group does skills and drills.
      Spotlight is when everybody in one half stands around one court and one at a time you do different skills.  The first skill they have everybody do is passing.  Next, everybody does setting and then on the next Sunday everybody does serving and hitting.  You do 5 serves and 10 of the rest of the skills.  Spotlight is extremely nerve racking because the best coaches from the whole club watch you individually.  I did really well this year because I was not as nervous as last year.  Last year when I was serving, I was shaking and I got 1/5 of my serves over the net and in the court.  I got 5/5 of my serves over the net and I was so happy with myself.
      When you are not doing the spotlight portion of the tryouts, you do skills with a coach from a different age group.  They pick a coach from another age group so that all of your potential coaches are watching the spotlight.  The drills on the other court are basically games so it is a lot of fun.  I like this side better because it is a lot less stressful than the spotlight court.
      I  like that Maine Juniors does two days of tryouts because if your have a bad day, then you have another day to make up for it.  I find that the spotlight evaluation makes me very nervous but once I am done with it I feel so relieved.  Also, the spotlight allows the coaches to watch every person do all of the skills and it gives them more than one try.  I like the process that Maine juniors uses to evaluate everybody and make the teams.                                     The picture to the left is what the spotlight looks like.  Instead of the coach doing it, it is the players who do it but this is the closest picture I could find.

New Club Facility

      My club is renovating an old hockey arena which is going to be our new gym.  The new building is in Saco, Maine.  Right now and for about the past 10 years, we practice at various gyms.  Some of the gyms we practice at are: Greely Middle School, Biddeford Middle School, and Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, which is on Mackworth Island in Falmouth.  The new facility will have five volleyball courts and three basketball courts.  All of the nets will be brand new and we will also have a lot of new ball carts because all of our current ball carts are broken and duct taped together.  I am so excited for the new facility because we are going to have all of our practices in one spot.  Every year Maine Juniors, the club I play for, holds one tournament and teams from all over New England come. The tournament is usually at Biddeford Middle school which only has two courts, but now at our new facility the tournament will take a lot less time because we have three more courts.  The tournaments usually last from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm.  Now, the tournaments will only go from 7:00 am to about 12:00 pm.  The facility is going to be very nice and will be great for our club.

Volleyball gear reviews

      I play a lot of volleyball and there are a lot of different types of gear you use when you play volleyball.  One of the most important pieces of gear is kneepads.  I will also include what I wear for clothing when I go to practice.  I will talk about my favorite type of ball to use.

      In volleyball I am always diving to get the ball so I need knee pads that won't rip.  I use the mizuno VS-1 knee pads and they fit great.  The pair I have is black but they also make white kneepads.  They are my favorite style because they are super padded and it doesn't hurt when you dive.  My last pair was not very padded and they hurt when I dove so I bought new kneepads.  I really like my pair and I recommend them for anybody that is shopping for kneepads.
                                                                     
      When I go to practice I wear spandex and a long sleeve shirt.  I wear a long sleeve shirt because it protects my arms from getting floor burns when I dive.  I wear any of my three volleyball shirts that I got from past tournaments.The spandex I buy are nike pros and I buy them in all different colors.  For my uniform I have to wear black spandex so I have four pairs of black ones.  I also have a pair that is a mixture of blues and greens and a pair of coral colored spandex.  I really like nike pro spandex because they are super comfortable.

      As you might know there are two types of volleyballs and many brands that make both types.  The two types are just normal volleyballs and volley-lite volleyballs.  Volley-lite volleyballs are for beginners because they don't hurt your wrists as much when you pass the ball.  As you play volleyball more, your wrists become used to passing a volleyball and you can start using normal volleyballs.  I personally hate volley-lite volleyballs because I am used to normal volleyballs.  I really like the mizuno volleyballs because they come in all colors so I get one every year from my volleyball club that is the colors of my club, Maine Juniors.