Julia On The Video Crew

Central ended up winning, 2-1, against Lincoln High.

Julia took a big step today, becoming part of the Omaha Central video crew for home sporting events.

This all started last year when Sean mentioned to Ms. Brown, the varsity volleyball coach, that Julia might be a good one to recruit to help out this season. He reminded Ms. Brown about this during open house earlier in September. But what Julia did not immediately realize was that the assistant athletic director had sent her an email about it back in September. It was not until today, Oct. 1, that she discovered the message.

But like Julia does, she moved quickly and made all the arrangements to be part of the volleyball match tonight. She's a quick learner and picked up on what needs to be done, even learning how the commercials are inserted into the broadcast. ("You can put one right in the middle of the action if you want, dad," she said.)

Now she has a full schedule of volleyball matches to attend later this month. It sounds exciting.

Bump, Set, Spike, Ohhh.

It doesn't always turn out like you want it to.

Emily's Volleyball Season In The Books

Grandma and Grandpa Weide watched Emily play Thursday.
Emily's season of eighth-grade volleyball has come to a close. Thursday was the regular season finale for St. Mary's and the Spartans came from behind to win in three sets. It was pretty thrilling and Grandpa and Grandma Weide were on hand to see it, along with Aunt Bridget.

Today was the first day of the post-season tournament. Emily's team rolled in straight sets over All Saints to earn the right to play St. Bernadette's Gold squad in the quarterfinals. St. Bernadette was seeded second, while St. Mary's was seeded seventh.

St. Mary's won the first set in a nail-biter, then narrowly lost the second. With no substitutes, they slowly wore down and couldn't come back from a 9-6 deficit in losing the final set 15-8. It was disappointing, but Emily showed incredible improvement from the beginning of the season – particularly in the serving department.

She served underhanded the first two-thirds of the season, but switched to alternating between underhand and overhand and had great success – including four aces in the final two matches.