Front Range Alumnae Win Two All-America Nods and Four All-Region Spots
It's only taken two weekends to play 61 matches and get down to the Final Four volleyball teams in the country. With only three matches left in the season, one Front Range alumna is still going strong! Ariana Filho has helped #11 Minnesota book their place in the semifinals tomorrow night in Tampa. Good luck Ariana!
Also taking place at the NCAA Volleyball Championship is the unveiling of the AVCA's All-American teams. Several of the names that you've seen here in the past two weeks were selected to be All-Region and All-American honorees.
Sarah Ammerman leads this impressive bunch by receiving three awards in the last week. First, she was named to the NCAA Omaha Regional All-Tournament Team for her performance against Texas. Next, she was selected to the NCAA All-Central Region Team. This morning, the NCAA announced that Sarah is an All-American too! She was named to the Third Team.
Next up is Kindra Carlson, who was named to the NCAA All-Pacific Region Team last week and followed that award up by earning a spot as an All-American this morning. Kindra was named to the Second Team.
Katelin Batten was named to the NCAA All-West Region Team. Joining her on the team is Jennah DeVries, who was also named to the All-West Team.
Front Range is proud of all of you! Good luck to Ariana and congratulations to Sarah, Kindra, Katelin, and Jennah!
High School News
The Denver Post released its All-Colorado and All-State teams last week. As usual, Front Range athletes were plentiful! Congratulations to all of you for a great season!
Front Range athletes accounted for half of the All-Colorado team, with Erica Denney, Mikinzie Moydell, and Erica Winkler earning three of the six positions. The trio were also named to the 5A First Team.
The 5A Second Team had Nicole Dalton and Rachel Gillcrist while the Honorable Mention list welcomed Carly Boatwright, Caitie Breaux, Morgan Bohl, Nicole Edelman, Anna Faul, Morgan Gradishar, Sarah Jaeckel, and Laura Steiner.
In 4A, Emily Alexis (1st Team) and Nichole Lindow (Honorable Mention) were selected. Also, Emily Alexis recently participated in the 4A All-State Games.
In 3A, Katie Reininger and Taylor Sturms were both Honorable Mentions.
The Breakthrough Model
The high school season is over; the club season has just begun at Front Range Volleyball Club. It's a brand new season, and, as a FRVBC player, you have a host of new opportunities awaiting you.
At Front Range, you will be encountering what we call the Breakthrough Model, and you go through the wave (see the chart) several times each season. It can feel pretty uncomfortable to go through it, especially if you don't understand where it's taking you. Where it's taking you is on the journey of becoming an ever-better player. Here's how.
The Breakthrough Model
The Breakthrough Model takes you through a four stage process that repeats as long as you are striving to improve as a volleyball player. The stages include 1) unconscious competence 2) conscious incompetence, 3) conscious competence, and 4) breakthrough.
- Unconscious competence - a pretty comfortable place where you trust the skill you bring to the court, and you don't have to think about executing, you just react.
- Conscious incompetence - a very uncomfortable place where you've determined that the skill as it exists isn't good enough to get you where you want to go and you become very aware of how it doesn't work. Worse, the new technique you're learning feels very awkward and you are wondering if you just made a big mistake in trying to change.
- Conscious competence - a less uncomfortable place where you begin to see some good results from the change you're making. The results are still inconsistent, and it's hard to have to think so much about doing something that used to feel very natural.
- Breakthrough - an exciting place where you're consistently getting better results than ever using a new technique that now feels comfortable and natural.
As you enter this new club season, your coach is taking you from stage one to stage 2, an important stage now because you need to be even better as individuals and teams to be successful in the competition you'll be facing later this season. If all goes well, you'll be at stage 4 twice this season: for the Qualifier season and later for AAU's and JO's. Appreciate the ride, knowing that the discomfort you're feeling now is taking you where you want to go.
Tim Engels, M.A., sports psychology consultant to Front Range Volleyball Club, is a sports psychology consultant and counselor in Denver, CO. You can contact him at (303) 956-5691 or tengels@qwest.net.
