Snow Spikeball

I don't sign up for a lot of Spikeball tournaments. I tend to be unreliable. My back just can't be counted on. This year has been especially bad, but that's actually getting ahead of myself. This tournament happened back in March, when my back was hanging in there.

If you recall from the Track post, the weather was not that great in March. Janille and I signed up to play in the rec category and we were super excited to play together. It had been a while.

In the morning, I woke up and looked outside and there was SNOW everywhere. I knew it wasn’t supposed to be warm, but it said 'overcast with a high of 43.' Well, it wasn’t no 43 and overcast meant lots of snow.

Janille checked to see if the tournament was canceled but Taylor (the guy in charge) said not to worry, it would probably be dry by the time we started. This seemed highly unlikely since it was snowing...

I layered myself up with clothes, grabbed Janille and we went to play Spikeball. (Come hail or high water) When we got there, they had shoveled circles into the snow so people could play.

 I think there were around 18 teams in the rec category. We were in group B with five other teams. That meant for pool play that we would play one game with all of them. Great. We played a lot of girls actually. Makes sense since it is a better bracket than competition where the boys get brutal. But there were still boys teams in rec. We played one and lost to them. Boo. So cliche. But they were fun. We beat all the girls. Some were better than others. 

Here’s the thing. It was freezing. Our hands were so cold to begin, but they warmed up. With my layers, my body was never cold, but my feet got so wet. They were squishy the whole time. The water soaked into my shoes and socks and it was like playing in a swamp. Really gross. I changed socks at one point, but it didn’t help much. My feet were dry for a few minutes and then squish again.

Also, the snow was crazy to play in. The ball was always wet, as well as the net. It snowed HARD on us for hours. It was so easy to slip and you couldn’t run for anything, because your feet wouldn’t move. It honestly was dangerous to leave the cleared circle, because stepping into the snow meant imminent falling. So we couldn’t run for anything. It changed up how we played, but I feel like it affected everyone. Cleats did help some people, but not us since we haven't worn cleats in a while.

After pool play, we jumped in the car to warm up and let our feet dry a little. We also ate some lunch. They brought in chik-fil-a, but we didn’t eat that. Janille is really fun to hang out with. Even when you are soaked through and already thinking about a nice warm bath.

The snow did let up some after lunch. We went back out and now it was time for the elimination. We got paired up with Young and Rusty. They were two 18 year old boys. They said they were rusty, but I thought they were pretty good. Their names were Ethan and Kaleb. They won the first game. I was worried we would be booted down to Consolation bracket right away. But second game tied up and we won with extra points. Wow. 

Then Kaleb said he was getting nervous. “Why,” I said. “Are you worried you might get beaten by old ladies?” He laughed and said,”You didn’t have to say it out loud.” The third game is only played to 15. Ours went into extra points and we won!! That was the best game of the day for us. I was so proud of us. I think those boys were not happy, but they were good sports. Ethan played EVERY ball on the net, even if it was an obvious double bounce. He couldn’t help himself.

Then we played a couple, Dilan and Mckinley. (I don’t know their team name). We were better than they were. She was not very good, so Dilan carried their team. But we were slowing down. Just part of the process of being old. We let some easy things go and made some mistakes. We won the second game, but lost the third. Bummer.

So we played some other guys. I feel bad, I forgot their names. One was Jake. They were really fun to play. Same thing. We lost the first, won the second and lost the third. Small mistakes, but I was feeling it. Plus, I fell HARD in the previous game. I ran into the snow and slipped falling on my back and knocking my head. That was a rough one. Even so, I still came back to play pretty well. We were done after that, and it was fine with me. Lots of spikeball and so much fun. It was new to play in the snow. That was a first for us.

The same day, June was playing her own Spikeball tournment at the High School. I was sad to miss it. I went over later to see how she was doing. She was playing for the top spot with Aaron. I think they lost to Conner and Jonathan. Too bad. But there was still the losers bracket. They couldn’t finish that day since June had to work, but they came back a couple days later, when there was no snow, and took second overall. Good job kiddo.

Spikeball is such a fun game to play in almost any weather apparently. I don't think I would choose snow again, but it was an experience.