Over in United I'm the manager of Nottm Forest and we had a chance of winning the title for the first time. But it meant not playing my apprentices, which would hurt a little in the next season or two as APPs gain SL by playing. I gambled and won the league. It was similar here: I have my sophomore setter and sophomore and freshman outside hitters that needed to play two games a session to get all the XP I wanted. We are the strongest on the right side of the bracket for the Nationals and so have to go for that. However in the Conference we would have to beat Quincy away and then Pekin just to share the title. Quincy were slightly stronger so at first I decided to play the kids there. But, as I commented, while there's still a chance I really ought to go for it.

And fortunately we won the game with a small upset. It wasn't quite T7 from us as I played my second best libero as he has a better RCV (18 vs 16). I don't know if this was a.factor as he didn't play that well but it made Kelso my 2nd best receiver at RCV 17 rather than Stover at 16. And Kelso had a great game. We still need to beat Pekin but we have home court advantage.

I gambled a bit in the Nationals by playing a couple of T14 players and we were only 4 points better than Spokane - easily close enough for an upset but we prevailed. I gambled because I thought it would give us a chance in the TMVL Cup but we lost fairly comfortably though the over all skills were close. With hindsight it wasn't worth the risk and I won't be doing the same this week.

As for the kids - well they may be a little short for the next 2 or 3 seasons.