Instead of dressing up in spooky costumes or trick-or-treating, the JV volleyball girls lead by Mr. Griffiths, celebrated this year’s Halloween by competing in the Kanto Plain JV-tournament held at the American School in Japan.

The JV players showed a significant amount of improvement this season, starting with three losses but then continuing with 6 consecutive wins. The players entered the tournament feeling confident, as during the season, they had won sets against the league’s strongest teams and favorites of the tournament, Seisen and ASIJ.

The Sacred Heart JV team was placed fourth in the league, which meant they were seeded 4th at the start of the tournament. Their first game was against the 5th seeded team, St. Maur International School. For the players this was an important game as it decided whether the team would continue to the upper bracket of the tournament competing for first place, or the lower bracket of the tournament fighting for 5th place and below.

Unfortunately, the Symbas lost their first game against St. Maur with scores of 17-25 and 17-25. Although the players were discouraged by the result of their first game, they stayed optimistic as they still had games to play.

The JV players had to wait for three full games before their next game began. “I think the two-hour break helped us with the rest of the tournament,” Kennedy (10) said. “It gave us time to pull it back together.” Their next opponent was the Kinnick Lady Red Devils whom they had beaten during the normal season. The players were able to “pull it back together” and won two straight sets with the scores 25-12 and 25-21. During the first set, Sakura (9) got 11 consecutive serves which contributed greatly to their lead.

Right after the win against Kinnick, the Symbas then proceeded to play the Zama Trojans. The Symbas were as successful as their previous game winning in two straight sets with scores of 25-16 and 25-19. In this game, Rina (9) got 10 consecutive serves putting the Symbas to a lead. “Although we were discouraged by the first game, we were able to keep on fighting. The team made us very proud,” said Kennedy (10) and Sara (10), captains of the JV team.

The Symbas placed 5th in this year’s JV tournament. “The players improved a lot during the season, especially by playing in competitive games against other schools. The players were very enthusiastic and they learned a lot about the rules of the game and different plays. Overall, I’m very proud of the players and the skill level they achieved,” said the JV coach Mr. Griffiths.