2006 HP Travel Team Logs
High Performance Program
Summer, 2006
We will post the daily reports sent back from the teams here as we receive them. Check back daily for updates while the teams are competing!
USA SELECT & YOUTH REPORTS:
July 16, 2006 - We made it down here in good shape. We left the Sportsplex at 6:00 PM and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 7:30 AM. We ate breakfast and then sent to the beach until 11:00 AM (when they would have the rooms ready for us). Ironically, at the point on the beach where our street takes us to the beach, there was a beach volleyball tournament going on over the weekend. They had about 30 courts set up with sponsors and DJ, etc. The players got in the ocean and some played some volleyball on an open court. We practice today from 3-5:30 and again tomorrow from 1-2:30. Fred and Kim arrived yesterday afternoon and the rest of the coaches arrived at 6:30 this morning.
July 17, 2006 - Today we slept in to recover from the long bus ride. They got up and ate breakfast in their rooms. A group of the players and coaches went to the beach for about 1.5 hours. Everyone met at 2:15 and we walked over to the convention center for practice from 3-5:30. We got to see several of the USA teams practicing (including Kelly Wood). At 6:45 we went to the Cheescake Factory for dinner and then back to the hotel for the night. Teams are meeting in the morning to work on what they are going to do for the talent show. At 12:15 we will head to the convention center for practice from 1-2:30. The two youth teams have been asked to scrimmage for the officials demo from 7-8 PM and then the coaches have the technical meeting at 8:30 PM. The grid is posted on the USA Volleyball web site under High Performance.
July 19, 2006 - We had a pretty good day although the results do not reflect the good things we did. Serving was an area where we gave away too many points.
Youth Blue beat Lakeshore and New England 3-0. They have been serving tough and their quick offense has been giving teams trouble. Youth White lost 0-3 to Team Florida but played them pretty even. The main difference was the missed serves. They also lost to Northern California 0-3 but again played them very close (after the first set). Northern California had a middle who was very strong. Select Blue lost 1-3 to Chesapeake and 0-3 to Hoosier. Ball control and serving were the two main areas that they have to improve in to get into the win column. Select White lost 1-3 to Lakeshore and 0-3 to Aloha. They played well in winning set 1, but came out nervous in sets 2 and the first half of set 3. They picked it up and made a match of it but ended up losing sets 3 and 4 close. Against Aloha (their region has won this age group the last couple of years) they got hammered in set 1. Aloha has some very tough jump servers with heavy top spin as well as hitting a heavy ball (lots of top spin and power). Select White did not give up and kept fighting, getting 16 and 20 in the last two sets against their main team.
I am looking at another 8 AM to 10:30 PM day in the convention center as we have teams playing in almost every time slot again (we had at least one playing in every time slot yesterday). I will try to get some pictures uploaded before I have to head to the gym.
July 20, 2006 - We had another pretty good day today.
After a rain delay and a switch in time and court, Select Blue lost to the Rocky Mountain team in close games. It was the only match they had that day and was a crossover match between pools. Select White started out with a loss 0-3 to Lone Star. They had to move the match between sets 2 and 3 due to a leak in the ceiling (heavy rains outside). They lost 0-3 to Iowa in their second match however, the players and coaches were pleased with their play and felt that they were making improvement in their play and ball control. Youth White went 1-1 on the day losing 15-6 in the fifth to Great Lakes after going down 0-2 and fighting back to send it to a fifth set. They finished the day with a hard fought win over the Chesapeake Region 3-1. Youth Blue also went 1-1 on the day. They started out with a tough loss 1-3 to Sun Country who was also 2-0 at the time. Sun Country was the toughest serving team that we have faced to date and they took us out of our offense at times with their serving. They finished the day beating Iowa 3-0 and played a very strong game with tough serving and ran an offense that was hitting on all cylinders.
JUNIOR REPORTS:
July 16, 2006 - We made it. A former Cuban men’s nat’l team coach ran a mini practice w/ the girls. It was fun and the girls did OK. Their spanish needs a little work though (except for Jana). We play the next 3 days at 9:30 and 11:30. We will look to play more the last 2 days. Our first match will be with players off the youth nat’l team. The Dominican is great so far. Will keep you posted.
July 17, 2006 - Well.......we’re 1-1. we lost our first match to the DR youth team players that are not travelling. They were OK and we played like it was a foreign game. They had a kid they plan to move up to the Nat’l team very soon. Boy can she bomb the serve and hit the ball. We get another shot at them tomorrow afternoon. We play 3 matches tomorrow. The girls had a good time their first day - some more than others. Jess got a love note from a guy here and a few others were being wooed. We’re keeping an eye on them and may need to tighten up the rules for some to increase the safety. You may want to remind them if they call to obey coaches rules and stay away from the boys.... We’ll keep it going on our end. We’re getting an early night’s sleep tonight. We play at 9:30, 11:30 and 3ish.
July 20, 2006 - Sorry we didn’t report in yesterday. We went sightseeing in the morning and played 2 afternoon matches. We got back in time to shower and get to the dinner appointments. We beat the teams yesterday and finished the trip 4-3. Found out today that three of our matches were with their youth and junior national kids. Good experience for us. Kids are on the beach and enjoying their final night. See you tomorrow.