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2005 CEVA Regional High Performance
Girls High Performance
- Travel Journal Photos: GHP Photo Animation (3.54MB file) Team Bonding Movie (18.5MB file) Journal: Saturday, July 16 to 18, 2005 First day of practice went well. All eight players were present and we worked on individual and team skills. The second day, we missed one of our players. We worked on team skills, attacking, and digging skills. The third day we had a great work day. After our third day’s practice, we met at the Danna’s home and had a great team social. Ron Danna cooked up some great burgers; we sat together and watched Remember the Titans. You can’t go wrong with this film. It was a toss up between Titans and Rudy. Sorry Rudy! Tuesday, July 19 2005
This was our travel day and boy did we travel! Our official Paula Martin and I flew on the 6:00 AM flight to Austin and our team was on the 8:00 AM flight. Our flight went as scheduled, but the team’s flight crew was over the flight limit so they couldn’t fly out. The team was rescheduled to depart at 1:30 PM. So, making a long story short, instead of arriving in Austin at 4:30 PM, they arrived at 10:30 PM. I met them at the airport after the Technical Meeting. Parents rented their cars and we were on our way to the hotel. After getting a little lost, the team arrived near midnight. This was a long 5 hour trip! Wednesday, July 20, 2005 Day 1 of Competition
Our first match was on Court 9 against Delta Valley Region. We lost in three 10-25, 9-25, and 10-25. The FIVB substitution rule is very restrictive, but workable. The team was very nervous and by the third set, we were competing and at one point we were ahead by two points. The players are learning how to be flexible in order to make quick adjustments and changes, and to use all their abilities in order to compete. Overall, I was happy for the first match of this tournament. After we played, the players wanted to go to Sonic for lunch. It was very hot and a little humid, but the lunch was good. I did learn on this trip that Jessica Danna loves to read and when there is time, it’s her opportunity to finish a book. After lunch, we drove back to the hotel, and watched Shark Tale. It’s now 2:30 PM and we are getting ready to head out to Palmer Events Center for our second match against Kaepa USA HP from Hoosiers Region. We played very well against the team from the Hoosier region. We lost this match 11-25, 13-25, and 9-25. I have to say that the level of athleticism of this team was much higher than our first match. Our defense did a great job against their very tough attacks. We were not matched, physically speaking, with their shortest front row being over 5’10” that can hit. I am proud of their effort and dedication, and we look forward to tomorrow’s competition.
The picture above is Brazil’s teams that finally were cleared to enter US. They arrived this morning. After our match, we went to this place called Cheuy’s. The story behind this place is that Lance Armstrong loves this place so much, that after every Tour de France he has his favorite meal from this restaurant. I have few picture of this interesting restaurant. End of Day one. More tomorrow! Thursday, July 21, 2005 Day 2 of Competition Breakfast was normal, nothing to report. We headed out to the competition site for our 10AM match against NCVA Red. Our team played well and clicked better that our first day. Players learned about each other. Our goal for this match was to learn how to make quick adjustments when needed, and we needed to make a few. We lost in three with scores of 11-25, 12-25, and 13-25. I loved the way we played because this team was equal to the Delta valley. We scored more points and had better execution of skills. I want to add this that today all the USA HP Coaches that were not coaching their team at that time, were going around and taking notes on the players. This was a good thing since one goal of this program and event is to identify talent for the USAV pipeline. After our morning match, we went back to the hotel, kids rested, some went swimming, and two of them went to the weight room. Pizza arrived at 1:15PM and it was mostly gone quickly. I set up one of the rooms in the hotel with the Spider Web team challenge. We worked on it for about 35 minutes. We will continue solving this problem tomorrow. It is now 2:45 PM and time to see what Iowa is all about. We arrived in the gym, and we had another problem to solve, our “blood bag” (a bag with an extra set of jerseys and spandex in case any of the players need to change out of a uniform with blood on it) is missing. I’ll come back to this topic later. We warmed up and are ready to play Iowa. Our goal for this match was to score 15 points per game. We met and exceeded our goal, but lost in four. Yes four. We WON our first game. That was exciting. The scores were 20-25, 22-25, 25-23, and 10-25. Don’t ask about the last one. We were happy with the third won. Players are doing great. Few ice bags on knees and wrists and few band-aids, but we’re pushing forward. We went back to the hotel, changed, and time to go eat. There are a couple of good places next to the hotel. The plan was to eat and go watch the bats fly out from underneath the Colorado Bridge. But, we were tired. Bats have to wait until tomorrow. We went back to the hotel and curfew was at 9:00 PM since few kids decided to leave their room past curfew the night before. I drove back to Palmer Events Center looking for our blood bag. Both days, we played on courts 9 and 8 and the bag was located next to court 3??. Laundry is done and everyone is quiet in their rooms. Tomorrow, we play the Lone Star region. Friday, July 22, 2005 Day 3 of Competition Breakfast was good. Morning drive to the Events Center was as good as it gets around here. I forgot to mention that traffic is heavy in the morning and in the afternoon. Anyhow, we arrive at the site and few players attacked the tournament store. I bought a few things also since I don’t have any plans in returning to Austin anytime soon.
I found a photo opportunity and after clearing it with the Canadian coaches we took a picture with their HP team. Members of this Canadian team are all born in 1990 and competed in the YNT level. We did have one thing in common with them, in that, we have not won a match, but have won some sets. The Canadians as well as the USA teams all played in the higher level. They did not enter their JNT teams in this tournament. Canadians entered two or three teams and US entered six. Now, we move on to our court. We played Lone Star Red and lost sets one and two 16-25 and 16-25. We took the lead in set three and never lost it winning the third set 25-23. We then went shopping during set four and lost 5-25. Winning the set against Iowa and one against Lone Star placed us 4th in the pool of 5 teams. Now that’s exciting. So, in our pool of 10, we finished 7th/8th. We were then scheduled for play the number 3 seed at 2:00 PM. No time for long break, so Taco Bell here we come. Nothing much to report from Taco Bell, but a dead bird we found in front of the steps hidden between some rocks. Took a picture of it, but I won’t show it just yet. The afternoon team was from Carolina Region and they played well. We lost in three with scores of 11-25, 12-25, and 12-25. This was a learning experience for us, and I have to give credit to the kids for making bunch of adjustments and getting caught on some bad rotations a few times. After the match, we went back to the hotel. We made reservations at this place called Joe’s Crab House. Food was great, but the air hockey competition was the best. As always, coaches win, and players learn. But I must say that the game against one of players’ brother was one for the record books. I have not, and I don’t think our kids laughed this hard and had so much fun. This was a memorable moment! You just had to be there! Back to the hotel, we changed, and split into two groups. Our small group went to watch the bats. Our large group went for the mini golf. We played the easy side, tomorrow, maybe the tough side. But, word has it that we’re going back to the Crab House for another round of air hockey with Greg (Monica Larson’s brother). I have to say that I am looking forward to this event. I don’t know who we are playing tomorrow, but we’re on at 8:00 AM. Win or lose, we will play either at noon or 2:00 PM. We will check out of our hotel in the morning and after the last match, the race is on for our 5:20 PM flight. It has been a blast so far! Saturday, July 23, 2005 Day 4 of Competition Last night we arrived at the hotel around 10:30 PM. We learned that there is a car show in town starting today. The special thing about this show is that, the young people of Texas that own interesting cars with a very expensive sound system with no manners what so ever, book many hotel rooms, our property being one of them. They dragged in coolers full of, I’m sure they were healthy beverages. I started packing and working on the line-ups for today’s matches. It’s now about 1:00 AM and time to get some sleep. The kids were getting louder and louder and about 2:00 AM Austin’s finest arrived on our floor and kicked about two dozen kids out of the property. This was good and bad. The good news is that there was peace and quiet on our floor and I was hoping that the kids will get their needed rest. The bad news was that those that were kicked out were hanging out in the parking lot. So, I decided not to sleep and stay in the lobby keeping an eye on our rental cars. I used this time to come up with number of line-ups and some planning for our 2006-07 club season. It’s 6:45 AM and players are arriving for breakfast. We checked out and are ready to head out to the competition site for our 8:00 AM match against Great Lakes HP team. If we win, we will play at 2:00 PM and if we don’t, we play at noon. Either way, we won’t forfeit any matches due to our 5:20 PM flight. Warm-up was good, and we were ready to play. We lost this match in three with scores of 8-25 (don’t ask), 18-25 (coming together), and 11-25. We made too many errors and struggled in this match. By not winning this match, we will play at noon against Delta Region’s HP team. Everyone was on their own for couple of hours and we planned to be back at the site at 11:00 AM.
Danielle and Katie were with me and we decided to have some fun in Austin. While driving around, we found the NBC station. We decided to go in and have the girls take a picture with one of their personalities. In the parking lot we met one of the drivers and he introduced us to their morning anchor Jim Bergamo who gave us a tour and couple of photo opportunities. Picture on the left, is outside by the news van. The one on the right was in the station in front of their news desk. Jim then showed us the interview area (picture below) and we took our last picture. We then head out to get a quick bite and arrived at the competition site. All the players were up and ready to play.
We played this team on the second day and lost in three. We hoped to improve our performance this time and improving we did. We lost in five, winning games two and three. Scores for this match was 17-25, 25-23, 25-23, 17-25, and 3-15. Having couple of extra players may have changed the outcome. This week, we had the least number of players on a team, with an average height below everyone else. But I must say that other coaches and I loved watching our kids play their hearts out and we played scrappy. There were number of college coaches walking around and recruiting. Our kids received number of compliments and positive comments from the other coaches. One of our players was interested by a DIII recruiter. Now, it’s time to head out to the airport. The flight out of Austin was delayed, but we made it in Denver with enough time to take a short break before our flight home. I will end this diary by saying, that this was one of most joyous times I’ve had with a team. Our kids played hard, listened, and learned a lot. They learned to make lots and lots of adjustments. I want to thank them for their effort and dedication and the opportunity they gave me to learn from them. I also have to thank Linda Pliska for looking after our kids and being a great team mom. She made this week run as smooth as possible. I also want to thank all the parents for cheering us on and supporting our program. This was a great trip! CEVA office will post more pictures on the web as soon as they receive it. This is Harmik and I’m signing off.
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