Gettin' in the groove...

Well, this weekend we finally started playing some decent volleyball and had a strong showing at the King of the Mountain tournament up in Vail, CO. Loric and I had a first tough match against Lucas and Tony. We were up for most of the first game, but somehow lost it at the end, something like 22-24. I shanked game point, and wasn't happy. Fortunately we picked it up and cruised through the next two games to win a fun match against a real athletic team. Next we faced Ryan and Paige, a real solid team that we last played in the finals up in Denver last year. I got about every serve and was lousy at siding out, and not picking up many balls. We dropped the match and were sent to the loser's bracket with something to think about through the night. I calmed my frustration and went back to fundamentals and found my shooting range on Sunday. We played a number of solid teams, but were in control, winning our first three games fairly handidly. We then faced Paige and Ryan again in the semifinals. We were off to a sow start in the first game, but steadied out by the end of it. We went on to play solid volleyball, scooping balls and siding out well. We won the second game by a good margin, and battled through the third to win the match. The long day on hard backed sand at high elevation and warm weather took its toll, we were both twinging by the third game of that match and were sucking down beers and pickles trying to dig deep for the finals. We faced Neil and Jamey, last year's winners. We gutted it out and I made a serving mistake, going to Jamey at 19-20 in the first game. He sided out and took the game. We were a little too gassed and they had fresh legs, playing only their second match of the day, and they took us out in two. They are a solid team and we needed to be at the top of our game to have a chance of victory. We both felt that our best ball of the season remains ahead of us, an upcoming trip to CA should help to boost us along. My body feels kind'a wrecked from getting all the serves and playing on such fine, hard packed sand, but an off week should be plenty of recovery. This was our best finish at one of the major mountain tournaments, and we go a little write up in the Vail Daily News. I think we're both looking forward to picking up our game the rest of this season and creating some big finishes. I'll be heading to NJ in a couple of weeks and may pick up a partner for the AVP quali or local tournament depending on if a suitable one turns up. Loric may be able to get up to Steamboat to play another mountain tourney if he can connect with the right partner. We'll re-unite in Manhattan Beach, CA to play a GAV tourney and get some practice in with the big guns, hopefully. Of course, first there is the Sneakerz tourney next week...