April Volleyball Recap
The 1st weekend in April Alayna’s team traveled to Las Vegas for the Red Rock JNQ hoping to get a bid for Nationals.
Since Vegas is just a 5 hour drive Jared and Alayna made it a road trip!
They had an awesome first day! 3-0. Taking out the no 6 seed!! Woot!!
The 2nd day they went 3-0 to get in the challenge bracket. Had a hiccup at the 9pm game to just miss the gold bracket. But they made it in the silver! This team is catching their stride. Day 3 was a tough one and ended up not moving on (and not getting a national bid) but ended the weekend in the top 15 teams which is outstanding!
On the way home Jared & Alayna got stranded in the middle of nowhere, AZ… 🏜️
The car started to overheat. There was nothing around, it was very hot, & they had put the last of their water in the car hoping it’d get them to the next town. He called me to let me know but I felt helpless being so far away. I got his phone pinged on Google maps & the only thing that I could see remotely close was the LDS church. My heart lept with joy & in my mind I thought… FRIENDS!! ❤️ I scrambled to find a number. Of course it was about 5pm on a Monday night (dinner time and family home evening) no one answered. I found a second number & the missionaries answered! Hallelujah!! 🙌 They made some phone calls to a couple of Branch members and they came to the rescue! Each of them were an answer to our fervent prayers. 🙏💖
We had tried to get our roadside assistance to send a tow truck but even after these members helped Jared get the car back up & running they still didn’t have an ETA of when they’d get a truck to them & since it was in the middle of nowhere, if/when one arrived, it was going to be a minimum of $600!😳 They could have been there for many more hours in the oppressive heat with no water. 😔
I can’t express our appreciation and gratitude enough! For the missionaries & these men. I’m beyond grateful for people like them who are willing to drop everything to help total strangers! 💙💙
PS- They made it home that night. Several hours after they had planned. But safe! The car had a cracked heater hose which has now been replaced. 😉
The next weekend was the AZ CNQ Tournament. This was their last shot at earning a national bid. The team came in confident and strong. The desire these girls had for this was palpable!
They fought their hearts out!!!!
They were unbeaten in pool play on day 1. They advanced to day two in the top 12!
On day two they won 2 games and lost 1. The game they lost was an all out fight to the finish. It was INSANE!!! Sadly, after a very long time-out called by the other team the girls lost their stride. It was heart breaking. The team finished in Silver.
They still have a shot for a trickle down bid. Currently they are the #4 alternate for a national’s bid from the region after the weekend’s AZ CNQ. Trickle down reallocations are not guaranteed, but there is some encouraging news. All 3 of the bid position 15’s have one more qualifier each over the next two weekends and will try to get a higher bid position than what they earned at the AZ CNQ. If they accomplish this, there will be trickle down of the region bids. We just have to wait and see what happens! Fingers crossed!!
