After taking a few weeks off from tournament play, the girls are back doing pool play this weekend. Unfortunately, their lack of tournament play or at least playing together as a team is showing. They have been accustomed to always finishing the day as one of the top three teams but yesterday they finished 7th which dropped them down a bracket for today’s play. They lost the first match in 2 games and they seemed very uptight which I attribute to lack of real game time. They have been practicing as usual for the past few weeks but nothing can replace the experience of real game pressure.
Jen’s team did end up winning their next two matches in two games straight each so I am a little more hopeful but it still looks like they have a long road back to get to where they were before the break. I have read many times that if you stop running for a month you can loose up to 70% of you capacity. There must be a similar statistic for staying away from real game play but that one I am sure is harder to quantify.
At any rate, I will continue to be a supportive parent despite my competitive urge to yell and scream at the matches (I have not done that since I was coaching soccer). They need to gel by the first week in March otherwise the Denver qualifier will be a painful experience.