That's what I expected of them, to be real honest. I know these kids well enough. They're all competitors, even if it's at different levels. I needed for them to say what they wanted to accomplish, not have the coaches say this is what we should accomplish with the last five matches. Fortunately we do have some matches in front of us where we can still accomplish some things, so we're practicing as hard as we would if we had qualified for the tournament.
Nobody wants to go out losing.
If you're going to go down, you should go down swinging and we will. There's no doubt in my mind about that. That means that they1re going to keep working. Just because the team will not play in the tournament doesn't mean they can't learn some life lessons and improve as a group in preparation for life after volleyball. It's still all about the kids, how they get through things, and how we teach them to deal with adversity.