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The day
was beautiful… but the wind was blowing hard… so no games could
be played… The girls posed for a few last minute shots before
scampering into the surf…
We needed
to depart for our afternoon game at about 1:30 pm … so most of
the team headed back to the hotel to get a bite to eat and get
ready for the game…
It was a
short 20 minute minivan ride to
Fluminense
Club… one
of the oldest clubs in Rio….
We walked
into the club and it began to unfold to us… Clay tennis courts…
50 meter pool…. Spring board and platform diving pool… 2 soccer
fields… and a large old indoor volleyball/basketball gym… It
looked like an old high school gym out of the 30’s -40’s … but
in great shape…
On the
stage area behind the court was a full gymnastic practice area…
it seems that no space goes unused here…
Bothe
teams began to warm up with the volleyballs .. spiking them back
and forth to their partners… and we coaches could tell by the
“sound” of the ball hitting the floors … that our opponent was
hitting the ball harder than we were… We then began hitting
across the net in a typical volleyball warm up… and
unfortunately what the coaches suspected … was in fact true… the
other teams outside hitters (most of their hitters….) got up and
UNLOADED on the ball … Their best hitters were hitting the ball
twice as fast as our best hitters… and they had more girls that
could hit that way than we did…
We talked
a bit about our previous nights … attempt to play… and everyone
was ready to leave that behind us and start a NEW….
The
Fluminense team did 3 things really well… they SERVED BULLETS
(volleyball jargon for serving very hard and tough)… they SPIKED
ROCKETS at us … and they SUCKED UP EVERYTHING WE HIT like a
HOOVER….. (they played defense really well)….
We played
much better than we had the previous night… but it seemed that
the tough serves and the hard spikes caught us a bit off guard…
We lost
the first game… but did not play too bad…
We tried
to make some adjustments… but our team was looking more like a
M.A.S.H. unit than a volleyball team… I don’t think we had one
person who was at full strength… they were pushing through it …
but we could tell the tank was kind of empty … or we were
running on only 3 wheels rather than 4 …
The
subsequent games found us adjusting to their style of game and
found some strengths of our own….
Our
servers could put the other team into trouble by serving
strategic and hard… which would result in the other team ether
making a reception error or.. it would result in a less powerful
spike to us…
We had
several long ball control rallies… and won our share of them..
Our
performance tonight was much different from the previous night
and was good to see that we can put that UGLY performance behind
us and move forward….
After the
game we headed back to the Hotel and started getting ready for
our check out at 8pm… and our flight at 11pm.
It has
been a once in a life time experience for our team.. I am happy
that we could make this happen for them…
We will
have practice for the first time in our gym on Thursday at
5:30pm, and again on Friday at 10am … and then depart for Oregon
to play in a tournament this Saturday…. (a short trip to Oregon
should be nothing for …. Considering the pre-season travel that
we have done so far….
More
info about our season soon
John Littleman
Head Coach
Highline CC Women's Volleyball Team |
