Every other week, Cardozo star Ashley Grubler, one of the top girls volleyball players in the city, takes us behind the scenes into her world as the Judges attempt to win back-to-back PSAL Class A championships. Grubler will give us the blow by blow through scrimmages, tournaments, rivalry matches and recruiting.
What makes this year different than the last? We are the defending champs.
Everybody wants to be champion. Everyone wants to beat the defending champs, no matter who it is. As of right now, everybody wants to get the best of Cardozo. We are not invincible. Will we lose some games? Yes. Will we win games? Hell yeah.
On Wednesday, we had our first scrimmage against Mary Louis. I give credit to them because they brought their game faces. We so much did not. We thought we would get the game handed to us. But instead they beat us in two.
I am not worried at all for the rest of the season. It’s the first game. Everybody falls but not everyone gets back up from the fall. I have a feeling we will come back stronger. Now we know how it feels to lose. It took us two sets to warm up and then the next two sets we won.
I feel as though we have a very strong team. At times we don’t live up to our potential. Most of us on the team play all year round. We all are athletic and physically fit. We know how to play the game. We (mostly including myself) can get hot headed. We can’t just think we can lay back and every team will fall for us. We have to fight. We have to fight ’till the end. No ball should touch the floor. Everybody should try their hardest.
We have the potential to be a great team, but right now we have to practice hard. I know it was just the first game, but we should have came out harder than ever. We should prove to everyone that we deserved to be the champs last year and deserve to be in the running to get there this year.
We have very strong middles (Jeanette Santiago and Melissa Medina) who are able to put the ball down. We have a great setter who runs the court very well (Jessica Lou). We have one of the best liberos in the city (Amy Sung). We have an amazing addition to the team, Jessica Yin, who is very smart and knows the game very well.
We also have Adriana Braciak. You have probably heard that name before. Last year, she was in and out of the rotation, but this year she’s stronger, faster and more skilled. She’s here to stay.
And if that’s not good enough, we have a bench that goes on for days filled with experienced players who are ready to take the court at any time. I have so much faith in this team. The one thing we all have to work on is being consistent. If we fix, that we will be ready for anything that comes our way.
Saturday is our Cardozo tournament and next Wednesday we play Francis Lewis already.
I can’t wait for this season.
Check back with Ashley Grubler every other Friday during the season. Her next diary will run Sept. 30.