Mental Toughness: Part 1

I began writing this post last week. I never ended up finishing it, but I think it's important to note. This all was written the night after we defeated Daniel Webster, which was Thursday, March 19. I will do my best to use Part 2 to continue exactly where I left off.


I'll be honest: I could have probably filled 2-3 posts a day with my thoughts on everything. There is so much emotion going on regarding our season that my mind seems to switch tracks by the day, if not more. Therefore, I try my best to stay off of this because I don't want to say something simply to vent.

The irony of all this is on the court, I seem to be able to focus better than ever. For the time we have a match, I'm completely honed in on the task. All the drama is so far away at the time. As soon as the match is over, it hits me like a train, and again I'm unable to quiet the thoughts..

We've lost 10 of our last twelve, both wins coming from Daniel Webster, a first year program. We've tried about 7 different line-ups. The flu, injuries, players, coaches, refs, and a ton of other excuses have been voiced/thought by just about everyone on the team. In the end, we can't seem to get back to where we were just one month ago.

It's very disappointing to be in the situation, but when I'm able to look at it, I can't deny the fact that it's intriguing. How does a team go from starting 16-1 to a 2-10 stretch? I feel like we'd be a sports psychologist's dream, and if we turn it around as I hope, I'll begin writing a book, because I can't even think of a sports team that's had such a strong start, collapsed this hard, then bounced back to win it all.

The scary thing is, I still have complete faith in this team. Everyone has their different theories. Mine is this: We started off the season EXTREMELY confident. When we played at BU back in December, we didn't drop a set. There were times we didn't play our best physically, we were down a couple sets 5-6 points, but in the end we always pulled through, as we never said die.


Fast forward to the regular season, and we still had that swagger. A couple plays swing a different way against Ramapo, and we could have easily have started 17-0. We were aggressive, we had talent at every position, and you could feel teams' nervousness when stepping on the court with us. We were going to come at you, and we weren't letting up.

About the time of the NJCU tournament, a flu bug slowly made its way around the team. We seemed to survive the first few games a bit short-handed, but the timing was unfortunate, as we were about to hit one of the toughest weeks of the season. Tuesday at Harvard, Thursday at Endicott, Saturday at Rivier...

Part 2 will be up shortly...