Mixed 6 2005

The Mixed 6 Tournament. Some of the villages around here are so small that they cannot field a complete team of girls for volleyball, so they go co-ed. Three boys and three girls. This weekend was the big Mixed 6 Tournament that brings a lot of visitors and trade into Nome. It is a very big deal.

We had a double elimination bracket tournament. Nome is fielding four complete teams of girls since it’s our tournament and we have 38 girls in the program. Our four teams even have nicknames. Team 1 is known as “The Uno” or “The Big Show.” Team 2 is known as “The Deuce.” Team 3 is known as “The Trifecta.” Team 4 is known as “ESPN: The Quatro” (a slight tip of the hat to the movie Dodgeball when they joke with the TV channel called ESPN—The Ocho).

The Big Show beat Shishmaref (which had guys on it) but then lost in three straight games to Point Hope, the eventual winner of the tournament. We were then beat 3 games to 2 by Golovin. They were tough. One of my players won the Female MVP of the tournament.

The Deuce lost all three matches and wound up in last place. They lost to Galena, Golovin, and Shishmaref.

The Trifecta and ESPN: The Quatro were basically JV teams and played JV squads. The Trifecta lost to Galena JV and The Quatro lost to Point Hope JV. They then played each other in the Battle of Nome JV. I got to coach The Trifecta and we beat The Quatro. Point Hope JV also won the JV category.

Co-ed volleyball is a different game than the one we’ve been playing. The net is almost seven inches higher and we just couldn’t jump, most of us, so blocking becomes almost nonexistent. And some of those boys can really spike that ball hard. Some hits went by so fast that the girls either couldn’t react quickly enough or you could see in their faces that they were flinching a bit. Not that I blamed them. Some of those balls would make me run away.

So I am just taking those games as the exhibition games that they were. Practice again tomorrow at 6 am on the lower net. Get back to normal.

We have Ninilchik and Bethel JV coming in this weekend. I have to plan to have the concessions booth manned and have our girls help clean up the NRC (Nome Recreation Center) in order to save $200 a night. I have to start actively fundraising for next year.

One of the really interesting facts about this weekend was the fact that we needed extra referees for the Mixed 6 games. Hear this: we had to fly in a ref from Golovin. Not only did we pay her flight in but we also paid her the standard ref fee. That’s a lot of money. I was surprised that there weren’t more qualified refs here. The basketball refs are thinking about learning in order to make the extra money. Basketball here is HUGE.