Start of club season (471)

The start of club season is one of the most exciting times of the year. Everyone is happy to be on their new team and waiting with anticipation for the upcoming tournaments. The energy is high in the practice gym, preparing for the first tournament of the year, wanting to start off with a bang. The first tournament is important to most players because they want to show everyone else what their team's got. If a team does well at their first tournament it gets them really pumped for the next tournament and the rest of the season. However, if they did not do so well, or not as well as they expected, it can be good for indentifying what things they need to improve so that next time they can do well. The first few tournaments are good for setting goals for what they want to accomplish and improve on during the season. During the time of the first few tournaments everyone is waiting with anticipation for the big tournaments like qualifiers- out of town and at huge convention centers. Having success early on in the season is a good way to prepare for bigger tournaments later in the season. These tournaments are also where the team starts to bond and become close, which can be important for team chemistry while playing.

Our team has done well so far this season. We started off good and won our first tournament at the Six Pack Invite. Then, the next weekend we had the JVA Hawkeye Cup at our facility and won all our matches there too. We were playing great with each other on the court and getting along great off the court. After that we had a couple off weekends, so we just trained hard at practice is preparation for the next tournament. Then we had the Nebraska Elite Invite, and we won that tournament. There was tough competition there and we had good teamwork. With those tournaments, we have not yet lost a match this season, which I think is a great start to this season. This has us all very excited for the upcoming tournament, President's Day Challenge, our first tournament in a convention center, and also the rest of the season. This motivates us the work extra hard at practice so that we can be as prepared as we can be for these tournaments. We each have things we individually can work on, and there are also things that the team as a whole can improve on. I also feel like everyone on our team has the type of mentality that is motivated to work hard to improve and reach goals for themselves and the team. Our team chemistry is also pretty good, with no drama like some other teams I have been on or heard about.