University of Minnesota Athletics
Fall Camp Blog: Jess Menden
8/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Today,practice started just as most others had with breakfast in the club room at the Sports Pavilion cooked amazingly by everyone's favorite chefs, Bill and Frida. They served up Zone french toast, waffles, oatmeal, fresh cut fruit, and of course my morning favorite, coffee! We then got ready for our morning session and hit the gym!
I felt today was all about focus. We implied more difficult consequences for different errors that can be commonly made when we might not be paying full attention or playing at our best. We found instantly that when those consequences were put in that our game instantly became tighter than it already had been. Hitting and serving errors were cut in half immediately, however we are learning to push ourselves to put it all out there while remaining mostly error free. Its a tough challenge, but I feel that we all respect it and are taking it as another opportunity to improve.
Afternoon practice was all scrimmaging and money ball, which is always a favorite. Moneyball is when we play out three free balls on each side and then an alternating "moneyball" at the end of those six balls. The catch is that the winner of the moneyball gets all the points they earned during that sequence and the loser gets nothing, no matter how many of the free ball points they had won. It gets really intense and is a great way to learn the importance of putting the ball away in pressure situations, when it matters the most.
Overall it was another fantastic day of being a Golden Gopher! We have tomorrow off and then back to another day on the grind on Saturday!
I felt today was all about focus. We implied more difficult consequences for different errors that can be commonly made when we might not be paying full attention or playing at our best. We found instantly that when those consequences were put in that our game instantly became tighter than it already had been. Hitting and serving errors were cut in half immediately, however we are learning to push ourselves to put it all out there while remaining mostly error free. Its a tough challenge, but I feel that we all respect it and are taking it as another opportunity to improve.
Afternoon practice was all scrimmaging and money ball, which is always a favorite. Moneyball is when we play out three free balls on each side and then an alternating "moneyball" at the end of those six balls. The catch is that the winner of the moneyball gets all the points they earned during that sequence and the loser gets nothing, no matter how many of the free ball points they had won. It gets really intense and is a great way to learn the importance of putting the ball away in pressure situations, when it matters the most.
Overall it was another fantastic day of being a Golden Gopher! We have tomorrow off and then back to another day on the grind on Saturday!
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