SAISA Boys Volleyball Tournament 2023
The boys SAISA volleyball tournament is a three-day tournament that is the climax of the volleyball season. The first two days are pool play, with the final day consisting solely of bracket play. This year the tournament was hosted by OSC which meant that parents, teachers, and other students could come and support. A lot of people ended up coming to all of our games, and I would like to thank everyone that showed up to support us.
We arrived at the tournament on the first day and beat Lincoln to start day strong. We didn’t lose a set to them but they were a fun team to play. We could have played a bit better, but we managed to win anyways. We had a big break before the second game, and we rested up and prepared by eating a little bit of food. Our second game was against Bombay, and we won the first set fairly comfortably, but we went down 12-1 in the second. It was a bit concerning, and I thought that we had lost the set already by that point, but by some absolute miracle we were able to come back and win 27-25 in overtime. That was the end of the first day, and we were overall happy with how we played, but we were still focused on the rest of the tournament.
The second day started the same day as the first did, with us beating ACS 25-11 in the first set and 25-18 in the second set. We were feeling pretty comfortable through the whole game, even though they played better in the second set. We had a long break during which we got a little bit of food and prepared for the next game. Our last game of pool play was against AISC, and they were really good on defense, which meant that they were a pretty bad matchup for us. Regardless, we swept them 25-14 in the first and 26-24 in overtime in the second. It was a good end to the day, and we were already preparing for the final day.
Because we went undefeated in our pool, we didn’t have to play the first round of eliminations. This meant that our first game didn’t start until around 10:30, allowing us to arrive a bit later than everyone else. Our first game was against Lincoln, who we again swept 2-0 in sets. We played ACS again in the semi-finals, and once again, we didn’t drop a set.
We only had one game left before we would take home the trophy, but our opponents were our toughest opponents yet. Our team had a goal to not lose a set all tournament, and we were so close to achieving that. This would be our hardest game, however. TAISM had gotten first place in their pool, and had cruised through all of their opponents so far. The finals were also the only game in the tournament that was a best of five match (first team to three sets). We hadn’t played any five set games all year, and we didn’t really know what to expect. As we were warming up for the game, my knee suddenly started throbbing. I had gotten it taped beforehand, but something aggravated it. I couldn’t start the game, but I came in at several points to help block. TAISM was a much better team than the others that we had played thus far, but we managed to pull out the win 3-1.
It wasn’t the perfect streak we were going for, but only losing one set in three days is still extremely good. I am extremely thankful that I had the chance to play with this team, and I am already looking forward to next year.