“My girls are not morning players, so it took us awhile to wake up,” Weatherford High School volleyball coach Sandi Barr said after Weatherford’s first game of the Weatherford Classic Tournament Saturday morning.
After a long day of games, the Lady Eagles won the silver bracket of the tournament and earned a plaque for the trophy case. “This is the best competition we’ve had consistently at a tournament so it’s good.”
The eight-team tournament began 8 a.m. with the Lady Eagles taking on Corn Bible Academy for the third time this season. Although it was an early game, it was an exciting one with each team taking the lead at different times.
In the end the Lady Eagles came out on top. “I feel that we’re confident we can overcome,” Barr said. “I put in two girls who hadn’t had a lot of play time and they played exceptionally, so it feels good we can mesh and get right to work.”
This was the first game of pool play and each team played three teams to determine their placement for the afternoon to see which teams would be in the gold bracket and which would be in the silver.
Weatherford earned several points during the day by hustling for every volley, even if it seemed they could not get to the ball in time. “A lot of it is they have that drive,” Barr said. “I tell them ‘Your body better be on the floor. If a ball is on the floor, your body better be in the floor.’ I tell them even if they don’t get it, if they’re going and they’re making the effort that to me is saying they’re doing the work. I guess that’s why they go for it even when it looks impossible.”
After 10 hours of play time and five games, Weatherford defeated Clinton and Corn Bible Academy to end the tournament as the silver bracket champions.
“We were disappointed we were in silver, but we recovered from that,” Barr said. “My girls adjusted. We had some attitude issues, so we adjusted from that and came back strong. We’re pleased with the outcome. They set a goal to win silver and they met the goal so I’m proud of them and they did well.”
Barr said along with focusing on keeping consistency with their energy levels, the team also has some technique to practice.
“We need to keep practicing and getting better,” Barr said. “In pool play we missed some key moments of serving so we need to keep practicing and keep getting better. We also need to work on some covering, moving our feet, and deep corners. I feel like overall we played well today, it was just the mental game. We just let those little mistakes get to us.”
The Lady Eagles only have one more tournament of the season, the conference tournament in Tuttle in September.