The Francis Howell Central volleyball program hosted their inaugural tournament this past Saturday and came second out of 16 teams. For senior Max Jarus, the day was enjoyable, even though it ended with a loss.

“This weekend was extremely fun. Unfortunately, we came in second, but I think the tournament helped us all connect as teammates,” Jarus said.

Another senior on the team, Dominic Prince, saw the tournament as a time to play teams that were not part of the typical season, to play out of their comfort zone.

“It was a very anticipated day. We had all been waiting to play teams we don’t normally play, even though we knew it would be hard,” Prince said.

The team lost to Fort Zumwalt West, a team they beat just days before. West was also down a key player for the tournament. For Jarus, West had a surprise factor in their favor.

“They had a really good player that got injured; it surprised us that they came out strong,” Jarus said. “They definitely surprised us. I don’t know what was different besides that they came out strong in the beginning.”

Keeping the confidence in a game, even while losing, could change the momentum, according to Prince.

“We stopped talking to each other, the momentum shifted to FZW, and we got too far behind to catch up. If we didn’t have bad body language after losing points, the other team wouldn’t have known who to pick on,” Prince said.

However, that did not mean the championship game was a scrap. The team came back and won the second set, even after being down six points.

“The high point was in that championship game. We were down like 15-8 and we came back from being 6 points down and that got us all pumped up and we had so much momentum going into the third game that we thought we were going to win it,” Jarus said.

There is always a silver lining to losing the third set. According to Jarus, the team knows the season is not going to be easy and the loss put it into perspective for them.

“The loss has us thinking about what we could do differently next time and we are excited to play them in the future because they are going to be our competition for conference champs. It changed our thinking about conference champs and how we play in the future, but it hasn’t changed our goals,” said Jarus.