Nothing like the game

W
ell, the first weekend of the 2021 season is in the books. 
There were ups and there were downs, and results were mixed across the four different sports, but there were definitely highlights from each.
The potential of our Dogie athletes — whether volleyball or football players, cross country runners or swimmers — was evident in many moments throughout the weekend. 
The greatest thing about the first competitions of the season is that each and every athlete in each sport comes away from their opening weekend with so much knowledge. They learn where their strengths lie and what aspects of their game need work.
There is just no way to replicate the reality of a game without being in it, and experiencing the focus and intensity that competition actually presents.
It’s just so hard to get that race mentality until you’re up to your neck in it. 
Obviously, practice is vital to any program and I’m not suggesting that it should be done away with, however unless you have two full teams of equal talent going up against each other in practice, you just can’t reproduce what athletes are going to be up against on game day.
In a school the size of Newcastle High, we just don’t have enough players to fill two starting varsity spots, so it’s going to be hard to get the reps in practice like you do in a game.
For volleyball, that makes the preseason tournaments the squad participate in that much more valuable to the program.
The Lady Dogies are short numbers this season so it’s tough to set up those game-like situations for the passers and blockers in order to get them prepared to take on other varsity squads.
It’s difficult for the Dogie football offensive line to get game-like simulation when the same players who are playing offense also play defense. 
But you don’t have to play a team sport to benefit from actual competition. It’s just tough to get yourself in race mode when you know that you are going to have to swim several 50s over the course of your practice. We have a natural proclivity to save ourselves for the task ahead rather than go all out without having a competitor swimming next to us.
The same goes for cross country runners. Doing hill repeats, running the canyon, doing park practices all require the athletes to run much more than a 5k, so the urgency of the race just isn’t there.
That’s why I so love the beginning of any season when teams get the chance to play those first games and race those first races. 
I love to watch the growth that inevitably occurs from just the first contest to the second. Granted, it doesn’t mean that a program goes from zero to 60 in just one week, but what we tend to see is that getting to actually compete has a marked impact on the athletes.
There’s just nothing like the game.