Sirve Con Fuerza! (Serve with Force)

Well it seems anywhere I go I am able to involve myself in something that has to do with volleyball. Here, as I have mentioned before, I have a team that I coach in my site, and I have also been working on organizing several volleyball tournaments for teams that volunteers have been coaching.
This past weekend we had an overnight tournament near my site that went great. My girls were so excited to travel (even though it wasn't very far) and to spend the night somewhere else. The schedule went like this: We arrived, ate, introduced ourselves and talked about the rules of the tournament and good sportsmanship, then headed to a nearby school that had a court and played a round robin between all four teams. The teams were not exactly equal in size or skill (my team, for example had mainly 13 and 14 year olds, whereas another team had a twenty-year old), and several teams got absolutely creamed, but thanks to all our chats about good sportsmanship, the teams all supported each other and cheered each other on.
The first day my girls ended up winning two games and losing one (to the team that had the twenty-year old on it) and were happy when we left the court and went back to the center where we were staying. After shower time all the girls came down to the main room and one team gave a presentation on the consequences of teen pregnancy. After dinner and cake the girls did some activities to get to know each other better, and then they were supposed to go to bed. My girls at 9 pm had told me they were exhausted and wanted to go to bed, but at midnight they were still up giggling and running around.
Despite the late night, the girls woke up before 6 am to begin to get ready for the tournament. After breakfast we did several activities to get the girls thinking about self-esteem and how they affect their teammates' self-esteem, and then I taught them some volleyball cheers that we had in the States--they all loved the Ace cheers!
After that we headed to the court for the semi-finals and finals. My girls won their semi finals game easily, and then it was time for the finals, against the team with the 20 year old and several girls who actually knew how to jump and hit a ball really hard. My girls got super pumped up at first, but were a little scared in the first game and lost. The second game they came back from 3-10 to win 16-14 thanks to some good defense from my said and infighting on the other side. Unfortunately, the girls couldn't pull through and win the third game, but they fought hard and were proud of themselves for getting second in the tournament, and of course winning a trophy!
We finished the tournament by handing out trophies to the two first place teams, and volleyballs to the teams with best sportsmanship and the team who raised the most money for the tournament. The girls all had a great time and were excited to go back to their towns and keep practicing for the next tournament!
As you'll see in these photos, my team was "sponsored" by the Macalester volleyball team, who sent us uniforms, a net and balls, which came in handy for the tournament, thanks Mac!