On March 27th, the 14U Fusion girls headed into our final tournament at Marc-Garneau High School in Trenton, Ontario, before the Provincial Tournament in April. It was our first tournament back after a week of March Break, and we'd only had two practices in the week before heading off to Trenton. We reached the courts around 8:00 am and began to warm-up for our first game at 9:00 am.

Soon we began our first match of the day against the Barrie Elites. We played well during the first game, but unfortunately came up short, losing 19-25.  We fought back hard during the second and beat the Elites 25-22. Overall we played okay, but we all knew we could play better, so we tried to remember our goals from the night before, as we headed into our second match.

This one was against the Aurora Storm Ice, and we played hard.  Storm came on strong and we ended up losing the first 16-25. During the second, we started to lose our rhythm, and everyone was feeling a bit down. We ended up losing the game 14-25.

After our second match Coach Louis gathered up the team and we found a quiet place in the hall. We discussed what we needed to improve on, and what we'd been doing well. Thara also presented us with some statistics she had been taking during our games. Overall they weren't too bad, but we all knew that there was room for improvement. Before our meeting was over Coach Louis showed us one of our favourite quotes, “You gotta believe,” and our mood quickly became more positive.

Our next match was at Trenton High School, so we hopped in our cars and drove to the high school. We had a three hour break before our third match, so we all had lunch and did some team bonding while we watched some other teams play.

After a long break, we got back on to the courts and the energy level was much higher. Our third match was against Durham Attack, and we fought hard and played well. Despite our best efforts we lost both games, 23-25, and 19-25. After the match Coach Julie took us out into the hallway and we did some visualization exercises before we entered our final match in Trenton.

In our last match of the day, we played the Markham Stingers, a team that we had met a few tournaments back. We played hard in the first game, and had a very big lead, and we started to lose focus. We finished the game with a win of 25-19. The second game started quickly, but we were less focused coming into this match and lost 21-25. We then headed into a third game.  We fought hard, but unfortunately we weren't able to finish with a win, losing a close one 13-15.

Overall, we had our ups and downs throughout the tournament, but we played well on average. We were also missing two players, Shandril, who was sick, and Thara, who came with us to the tournament but unfortunately couldn't play because of knee injuries. We would like to send a huge thank you to Thara for coming even though she couldn't play with us and supporting us throughout the tournament. It takes a great leader to follow their team three hours from home, knowing they will not be playing, and still keep a great mood and positive attitude towards everything. Thank you so much Thara.

Congratulations girls, and good luck at Provincials!