May 26, 2011
 
Hey Everybody!
 
Wow, this week is really flying! I cannot believe it... Needless to say, the soreness is setting in on Day 4, but we are all doing are best to work through it! Today was yet another full day of practice and preparation for this upcoming weekend. The amazing thing we have discovered about team is we are extremely versatile, and we have so many players that can play several different positions. Thus, we spent today working with several different lineups and rotations, which is super exciting!
 
First session, we worked in some more tempo drills trying to establish a connection between our setters and hitters. We took a lot of reps this morning blocking, attacking and passing. The coaches set up drills just as outsides vs. six and middles vs. six, which is always so much fun as a hitter because, we get to call any set we want and try to outscore the opposing full court of six players! Yet, it's also a great teaching drill on how to see your blockers and see the court while you are in motion. As a team, we wrapped up the morning with a very intense and competitive scrimmage against another one of the USA teams. It was our first live game against an "opponent" (even though we are all together on Team USA).
 
Second session was a lot more technical for Team Red. Working out of serve receive scenarios was a big part of this afternoon's session. Working with our new potential lineups and rotations, we pushed a lot of drills working on siding out on the first ball of serve receive. We had to get three terminated balls out of serve receive before we could rotate, which was challenging against some of our really good top spin and jump float servers. Some of these girls can really rip on a serve!
 
I can't believe we are down to just one more practice on Friday before game time! I figured this week would go fast, but wow, it is really flying. I have met so many nice girls down here and really built some good friendships with some of them. I'm so thankful for this opportunity to play great volleyball and meet new and amazing people!
 
Go Big. Go Blue. Go Jacks!
God Bless,
Kelli Fiegen