On Thursday October 12th, the HMSA girls volleyball team put their blood, sweat, and tears into one of their toughest games of the season. However, the team had a heart-breaking defeat to Vistamar in a quick series of 3 games.

The girls from both teams played hard from the start, as they knew this game would be tough. In the game, the defining factors were communication and mental focus rather than volleyball skill. If one player messed up, the whole team would be affected. This is why it was so important for the girls to work together in order to be victorious. Unfortunately, this area is where the girls lost their mojo. After a few mistakes, the game grew frustrating and before we knew it, Vistamar had the lead by 5. Our girls did the best they could but fell to Vistamar in the first game 25-19.

The second game started off just as competitive as the first. Our girls even forced Vistamar’s players to get frustrated with each other. However, the minute our girls slipped, Vistamar caught on and exploited our weakness. Clearly the girls knew they had more talented players than Vistamar, but the rival team quickly looked past their mistakes and was ready for every play. Vistamar took a swift lead and with our girls missing several serves they didn’t do much to help their cause. Vistamar was quick to take a 2-0 lead on our girls with the 25-16 win.

The third game didn’t go as planned for our girls, as they were short on the lead. In this game, they fell further behind. After several missed serves and even a couple of aces on our girls, Vistamar clenched their victory, leaving our home court with a 25-14 final score.

Team member Nicolette Tuazon was asked to identify the biggest obstacle that held the team back and her response was, “As a team, we tend to get mentally unfocused because we worry about the mistakes we make. We get hesitant and play safe, but when we play safe we aren’t aggressive with our plays giving the opponent opportunities to score.” The biggest takeaway the girls got from this game was that mental focus is just as important as physical skill when it comes to sports. HMSA and Vistamar were very competitive teams, and it was just a matter of teamwork to keep motivating each other to do their best and not give up. Once more, the girls faced a challenge as a team and took their loss as a learning experience to not repeat their mistakes next season.