Bouncing Back

Well, after our disturbing performance in the Grand Prix, we seriously needed to jump-start the second half of our season. We opened tonight at home against Sollentuna, the team we lost to in the bronze medal match of the GP. With Erik out with his knee injury we had to seriously mix things up in order to be productive. We ended up going with 4 outside hitters, Dave setting from the middle blocker position. We had to alter our passing line-ups and our hitting arrangements, and it was going to take some serious focus to make sure we were not continually out of rotation.

The starting line-up looked something like this:
Linus Tarik Dave - front row
Tobey Vedad Paul - back row

And ROTATE!

Dave has been sick the past 3 or 4 days but pulled it together to get out there and give us even a chance! During time outs and between games he had a jacket on and was pounding water. He threw up a little in his mouth some point during game 2. Serious Canadian Warrior! He actually did a tremendous job blocking in the middle, leading the team with 3 blocks.

I don't know what it was - maybe the crab-meat pasta we had before the match, but we KILLED IT!!! The first game FLEW by as we served aces and sided-out close to perfect. Perhaps focusing on the rotations took our minds off the actual game-play, but we were on fire. We played fast, controlled volleyball. We made few errors and rocked their block, pounding kill after kill. Linus was on FIRE!! He was getting UP. He'd sit in the air, wait for the ball to get to him, then turn down the line and THUMP it in front of the defender time and time again. He nailed their setter HARD in the chest. They just got out of the way after that. We brought some serious THUNDER!

Our play stayed almost perfectly consistent and we swept them 25-19, 27-25, 25-23. We scored the clutch points in the end and sealed the win. The crowd was going nuts. Everyone contributed, everyone played well.

I had a stellar match, and as Vildan put it "my best match yet." While I'm not totally sure I agree with him, I put up some impressive numbers. I made just 3 errors the whole night (serving and hitting) and registered 16 points in the first 2 sets alone! At one point I had 3 consecutive kills off the pipe, out of the backrow. I was blasting hands, finding the floor, hitting perfectly. I finished with 19 points on 17 kills, an ace, and a block. I had 3 kills on 3 swings in the final set. It was beautiful. I was named player of the match. Linus finished with 13 points and the rest between 5 and 7.

After the match the VVK director came over to me and congratulated me. He said it simply, in a simple Swedish accent, "Awesome!" I had seen him earlier at lunch in the hotel and he was concerned about our chances. He said to me then, "you'll be fighting alone tonight, huh?" With so many injuries and illnesses no one thought we had much of chance, but it's pretty cool how the town still shows up to matches. In any case, Vingaker is happy again, at least until Sunday when we play our next match. Are we having fun yet or what?