Breaking the jinx of overconfidence

By Sarah Montez --

Overconfidence preceded lack of confidence.

We would start most games cocky. Then when we started to make mistakes or face tougher-than-expected competition, the false confidence gave way to self-defeatism.

We would jinx ourselves.

But on Tuesday, Lighthouse Christian Academy decided to start the game different: with humility and determination.

As is the case with most sports, the psychological game wins the game.

We won against Hillcrest Christian School of Thousand Oaks in three sets, confirming dominance started in a pre-season face-off.

In the first game, a big hit against our confidence was a ref's call. We saw the ball as clearly landing in, but the line ref said it was out. Even an opponent volunteered to the ref that the call was wrong, that it was in.

But the head ref ruled it out.

It blasted our momentum. We were upset. Hillcrest scored four consecutive points.

Coach Xiovana Moraida called time-out. "This is your game," she told us. "Play like a team. We can beat this team."

We rebooted our positivity. Ultimately, we trounced them 25-12.

Hillcrest lacked strong serves and couldn't make any kills. We should have beat them handily.

So we kind of let our guard down and didn't 100% effort in the second game. The other team started to come close in the score.

Seeing the score tight, we decided to step up our competitiveness to finish them off 25-19.

"Our attitude was really good overall," said Heidi Hutchinson. "We learned from past games that having a bad attitude is not the way to go, that it brings us all down when one of us mad. But if we all have a good attitude, we will all be happy -- even if we lose."

Sarah Montez is the team captain of the Lighthouse Christian Academy girls varsity volleyball team.Read about LCA's X-Factor against San Fernando Valley Academy.

Or LCA's victory against Hillcrest Christian.

Or LCA's loss against Westmark School.