The Hopkins all-day volleyball tournament, Oct. 6, brought tough competition for varsity volleyball teams from all across Minnesota according to Coach Whitney Meierotto-Simon.

According to Meierotto-Simon the team went 2-2. She said although they came home with 11th place out of 15, she said she thinks they started off stronger than any other tournament.

“We did have some of the best volleyball we’ve had this whole season today, so I’m proud of them them for that,” Meierotto-Simon said.

Junior captain Makaila Winward said they need to learn from their teammates’ mistakes and work on playing more consistently to improve in future matches and tournaments.

“As a team we have troubles playing consistently so if we’re playing a lower level team just playing consistent and playing our game,” Winward said.

According to sophomore Hannah Howell, the team prepared for the tournament by watching teams play, in order to learn from them. She said they should worry more about their side of the net instead because they didn’t know who they were going to play.

“I think we can focus more on staying to our level against high competition and never stepping down from that,” Howell said.

According to Meierotto-Simon, the team has grown a lot from the tournament.

“Our goal is to just eliminate all of our forced errors on our side of the net,” Meierotto-Simon said. “We don’t expect the girls to play perfect but we just need to get rid of a few of those errors and we’re gonna be just fine.”

Howell said the idea of working together as being very important in regards to facing challenges as a team.

“We’ve learned how to work together, even when we’re down we still pull together,” Howell said.

According to Winward, she learned that it’s best to focus on the details when correcting errors.

“Just focusing on the little errors that we can correct because it’s a long day and so those little errors will rank up to a lot of points,” Winward said.

Meierotto-Simon said she likes this particular tournament because it brings a lot of good competition and different teams from all over.

“It’s a lot of teams we don’t normally see so that’s good, and it’s great competition so it’s good for us,” Meierotto-Simon said.

According to gopark.org, the next volleyball match will take place at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at Hopkins Lindbergh Center.