Free the Spike

(March 30th, 2024)

Long gone are the days when playing tournaments is a good idea for me. Just saying the word tournament can throw my back out. But for some odd reason, I decided to sign up anyway. It was mainly for Jake since I thought he would enjoy trying one out. I'm pretty chill and don't get super competitive or upset if I lose. (Actually, Jake is super chill too. He was a great partner.)

The day was oh so cold. It could have worse...it could have been snowing. At least that didn't happen. But I was freezing and couldn't warm up the entire time. At one point, Jake touched my arm and said, "You are a popsicle!" Yep, that is how I felt too. But still super fun to play.

Here is a group shot. (we are on the far right. You can pick Jake out easy since he's in the yellow shirt.)

We played intermediate or recreational, as they sometimes call it. Everyone starts in pool play and plays everyone in their pool. Then all the teams are seeded and the real games begin. Jake and I did not win any of our pool games. Yikes. June, however, who played with a friend from her mission named Michael, won all her pool play games. I thought that meant that we'd play them first. You know, pair up the worst with the best. But they didn't do that. Instead there was a lower bracket of the four lowest teams. We were definitely in there.

We did win a game however. Same game where I thought I broke my hand. This guy hit the ball really hard and his follow through smacked my hand. Whoa...it hurt so bad!! I'm sure the cold didn't help. My skin was already so sore. I only took a few minutes and then went back to playing while favoring my right hand as much as possible. I knew it wasn't broken since I could still move it, but it hurt for quite a while. And a bruise showed up under my knuckle the same day. 

Meanwhile, June and Michael did great. They ended up taking second. Nicely done. 

They took a lot of pictures of the event. Going back, there weren't any of me really. You can see June and Michael in the background here.

And Jake with his bright yellow way in the back there. 

These are the best close ups they had.

And yes, we played a kid. That guy across from Jake was 12. He wasn't too bad. 

It was a fun day despite my being frozen. But I'll stick to playing with my school gang. They are so much fun and more my speed. :) And we can play indoors whenever it is cold!