July 25th Sand Tourney

UPDATE:
It was a fun, albeit hot tournament. There were some last minute partner changes due to injuries. Matt V had to drop out due to a turned ankle (ice hockey in the summer) and Loric's knee was giving him problems from a few weekends on the grass. I wound up teaming up with Matt's partner Ruskin and things went very well. It was unfortunate that Loric and I didn't get to play one final event before he moves to Santa Barbara. We had 7 1/2 teams, until late in the day a surprise player arrived. Jimmy had shown up without a partner and was rotating players throughout the day, when Loric was asked to go out and fill in during our second round playoff match against him. Miraculously Loric had Board Shorts in waiting and decided to give it a go. His knee held up quite well and we had a real fun match, going three games. They went on to ride through the loser bracket to a third place finish. I give props to Jimmy for stepping up his game and playing solid for the tournament. Also, great job by Ruskin who handled a lot of serves and played strong the entire day. Jeff had another amzing finish with Larry, which gives me hope that I also might be able to play for another 40 years. Good times. There is one event left to wrap up the Sneakerz sand series for the year. Here are the results:
1) Ruskin Blankenship/ Adam Rubel
2) Jeff Poole/ Larry Cornwell
3) Jimmy/ Loric Box
4) Desi Vigil/ Harris Zeyaee
5) Bryan Klein/ Cameron Vigil
5) Tyson/ Stuart
7) Aaron Box/ Paul Sanchez
7) Kevin/ Stanley
***
This Saturday is doubles sand tourney, with guys at Sneakerz (8:30 check-in, 9:00 start; $15/ player), where I understand there is a new third court and new sand on all the courts. Women are playing GAV over at Lucky's 66. Well, back to the old ways. Last tourney was canceled, unfortunately, due to poor coordination and a simultaneous grass tourney. I'll go back to listing teams entering for a tourney on this volleyblog. Please let people know to contact me if they would like to be on the list prior to sand events. Seeing who will be turning out usually helps to draw bigger attendance at tourneys.
Summer's going to wind down fast, so let's play 'em while we got 'em!

Summertime Update

Well, it's been a long time since updating this site, sorry for those that have been following. My goal has been to keep up with Bryan's maintaining his website, and I think this post brings us to about even. But thanks, Bryan, I know how hard it can be rounding up volleyball players and running tourneys.

So, Loric and I played the Sandia. It was a fun event, and we won our first match against a good CO team, in windy conditions. Not pretty, but it earned us a spot in the feature match against the top seed. It was a night match at Sneakerz and was lots of fun. I stunk, but I think we were somewhat respectable. Next morning, lost a couple of close games to Paige & Ryan from CO, solid team that we match up with real well and always have fun battles. I had to remind myself to be patient, in that it had only been one month since picking up a ball again prior to that event, and I had only played a few local tourneys for practice.

Speaking of local tourneys, they have gone well. Loric and I have won everything we've played, and a couple of weeks ago I played with Matt V. & we won in the heat. Loric & I were supposed to go play in Vail, but Loric's got too much going on with his move to CA, so we had to drop out late.

Loric and I will get a couple of more tourneys in this month, including this weekend at Sneakerz, before he heads out to Santa Barbara. Might take a trip out there late summer/ early fall and we might get an event in. Sure would be great to be back on the beach.

Physically, my abdomen feels 100% solid and isn't a concern for me anymore. Kettlebells has made me quite strong and is getting me in crazy cardio shape, which I normally hate working on. It's actually quite addicting once you get into it. My knee, however, is a punk. Found out last week that I have a moderate tear in the medial meniscus. Crap, definitely been affecting me, but I can play through it. Going to work with Christy & Reform Spine & Muscle to treat it without surgery. She is a wizard and sounds confident that treatment will help.

OK, I'll try and post more soon, so I can pull ahead of Bryan!

Kicking Into Gear...

Well, four weeks into playing and three tournaments later, so far, so good. Loric and I haven't dropped a game, have had pretty good control, and have 3 tourney wins under our belts. For me, the hardest part has been getting my body to not hold back, and to act more explosively. I felt like I had a few moments in last week's tournament that were like that, able to get more than two inches off the ground and able to react somewhat quickly to pick up a few shots. My abdomen is feeling 100% now. I give a lot of credit to the kettlebell training, as it is my only exercise right now. I've been feeling strong throughout the tourneys, and even started with a bit of jump serving. You know, the fun parts of the game...

So, the good/bad news is that my partner will be leaving the end of the summer. The bad news is of course that Loric is leaving the state and we won't be able to play together out here any more. The good news is that he is heading to Santa Barbara with his family where they have great teaching jobs lined up and will be living near the beach, where the sport is meant to be played. I'm sure we'll get periodic reunions, hopefully surfside.

I'm not sure how I feel about all the sand tourneys for men being on Sundays coming up. It seems the schedule got a bit patchworked this year, with grass/sand happening on different days of the same weekend. Also, with the sand being so rough at Sneakerz, I wish there would be more events at 66 for us between now and mid-August.

In a couple of weeks, the Sandia Mountain Classic is coming up, and there are going to be some rediculously good teams from around the country showing up. My original goal was to get healthy enough to play in the event, and it looks like that will happen. Now I want to be competitive, we will see. Guarenteed to be a good time. They tore up the sand court here in Santa Fe, so I'm not getting any other playing time outside of tournaments, but I might make a trip to Abq. next week for a practice day. After Sandia, the next tournament we'll play is King of the Mountain in Vail in mid-June. We'll have to try and improve on our second place finish a couple years back.

We're Back!

Well after a long road of recovery, I've made it back to the sand. Turns out a 6 inch abdominal muscle tear can be quite debilitating. Lots of rest (many months) and many treatments later, including accupuncture and soft tissue massage/ kinesiotape (thanks to Reform Spin & Injury Center, who was the ones to accurately diagnose the injury after a good 11 months), and physical conditioning (I've been training with a Russian Kettlebell instructor, good stuff) and my body is feeling close to normal, at least for my age. Loric had taken time to recover from a ligament tear in his ankle, which seems to be better as well, as long as he stays on soft, sandy surfaces. We played this weekend for the first time since the Sandia (and my first time playing since last June) with good results. Bryan has done a good job in affiliating with Great American Volleyball and had a solid turnout in spite of cold (50 deg, maybe), rainy weather. We went undefeated on the day and pulled out a 7:00 victory under clearing skies. Was lots of fun. We're hoping to get a few more tourneys in before the Sandia in May, which is shaping up to be another strong event. OK, with my resurrection to the sand comes the return of filling this blog, for anybody that is left out there reading. Let me know what you'd like to hear about, though I have been (thnkfully) relieved of my duties in coordinating events.

Out for the Year

Well, it's been the worse year personally for trying to play volleyball that I have ever had. First a knee injury at the start of the season, then some abdominal problems since April. Turns out to be a significant enough injury that is only going to heal with rest and time away from intensive physical activity. So, looks like I'm out of everything - playing, training, yardwork - for about six months, which means hopefully things will heal up so I can start working back into some kind of shape around February. As I'm going to be out of the loop and my future in New Mexico is uncertain, this site is going on hiatus and will not serve as an updated resource for volleyball information, at least for now. Mike McKracken will be taking over the email list, and I am sure will do a great job at keeping the 400+ volleyballers on it informed of all that is happening related to the sport in the state. Bryan Klein will be taking over the sand tourneys. His info is: vballnm@gmail.com and he has a blog, kinda like this that he is maintaining tourney info on at: vballnewmexico.blogspot.com

Thank you all for the good times and for helping to grow the sport in New Mexico!

July 12th Sneakerz Tourney

Lemme know if you wanna sign up. If we don't get a full list of teams, maybe we should switch over to some other KoB or draw type of format??? Anyhow, same deal as last time, see below. Here's teams so far:
1) Bryan Klein/ Adam Rubel
2) Matt the Rex Valencia/ Adam Cabbage
3) Larry Cornwell/ Desi Vigil
4) Bryan Atwood / Derrick Robinson
5) Cameron Vigil/Harris Zeyaee
6) Paul Sanchez/ Ray Garcia

Sneakerz Tournament June 28th

Next Sand Doubles tourney is at Sneakerz, June 28th. Looks like we will have some out of town players. Drop me an email for this one if you want to sign up. Here's the teams so far:
1) Loric Box/ Adam Rubel
2) Chris Roosild/ Brian Post
3) Drew Winterstein / Jeff Dumbrell
4) Matt Valencia/ Adam Cabbage
5) Rob Pierce / Jorge Alarcon
6) Harris Zeyaee/ Asa Warren
7) Fred Ader/ BenWallis
8) Bryan Klein/ TBD
9) Mike McKracken/ TBD
10) Paul Sanchez/ Ray Garcia
11) Ed Lucero/ TBD
12) Jeff Poole/ Larry Cornwell
13) Josh Coffing/ Jim Coffing
14) Amy Wong / Sarah Kwasigroch
15) Kameron Cheney/ TBA