Serving and Bumping Our Way to Glory

By Sarah and Vivian
 

Banting and Best has a Junior Girls’ Volleyball Team! The coach of the team is Mr. Ly, the Grade 4/5 teacher in Portable 2 who loves coffee. There are 12 girls on the team: Cyndy (captain), Mandy, Sally, Sarah, Safa, Zara, Vivian, Vanassa, Emma, Yuki, Angela, and Hudha. Since we have so many players, we have a Starting Six and a Practice Squad; some members of the Practice Squad may not go to the tournament.

We mostly practise our bumps and serves, which are the basic skills. Our practices are in the gym and they are usually every day except Wednesday. Some members of the Grade 8 girls’ team help us after school. Sometimes Mr. Ly makes us run and that is the worst part for us. The most fun part is when we practise our rallies because we get to play in game situations. We get into our positions and practise as if it’s a real game: we keep track of the score, we have to rotate every 5 points we  get, and our goal is to get 25 points.

Our tournament is on  Friday, Feb. 10 and it will be held at Kennedy Public School! We are all very excited and nervous at the same time. It’ll be our first time competing against other schools in volleyball and we’re scared to see how we do. Mr. Ly has noticed the improvement in our skills and feels we’re ready: “I sometimes think back to the beginning, when I saw them serve for the first time, and I can’t help but smile. They didn’t know what they were doing at that first practice, but now they look like a real team that is ready to compete.’’