Absolute Combines Fun and Success at Nationals
By: Beth Nuneviller (Player/Team Rep)
Going
to Nationals in Denver was such a great experience for our
team. We were
divided on whether to go
AA or A division
and I think we made the right choice with “A” to
allow for us to get the whole volleyball nationals experience.
With five girls in one hotel room 2 miles from the venue,
it was tight quarters and required lots of cab and bus rides
to get to and from the convention center. We had to space out
arrival/leaving times to accommodate showers etc. We were pleased
when we arrived at the captains meeting to find we were in
the afternoon pool the first two days to allow us to experience
the Denver nightlife and socialize with other volleyball players.
In
addition, the afternoon pool allowed us to thankfully borrow
balls from
Becky/Don Hudson and Bill
Pincus with Pro Sport
45’s (the men’s 45 team) in addition to the other
teams that helped us out. Thank You So MUCH for the loaners!!
It was our incentive on Day two to continue to go undefeated
in pool play and guarantee a late wake up call for Monday in
addition to a top ten seed in the gold bracket. This again
allowed many of our team members to have fun in Denver off
the court as well as on.
After pool play we were seeded sixth going into the bracket
which we were satisfied with. Our first match of the bracket
we played well and won in two. The next match we faced the
Armed forces team (eventual champion) and lost in two. Therefore
we had to win the next match to advance to continue play on
Tuesday. We finished it off in two and earned ourselves an
8:00am reffing assignment and 9:10am match.
After all of us finally dragged ourselves into the convention
center that morning, we won the 9:10 match in two. Advancing
to the final six we won Game 1 25-19 against team TOO MUCH,
but ran out of steam in games two (22-25) and three. We actually
were down in the rally score game 8-1 at the switch, but fought
back for match point at 14-13, but eventually lost the match
at 17-15.
I
thought our fifth place finish out of 60 was fine considering
our circumstances.
We only brought seven
players including
our libero and a middle that had injured her knee the Wednesday
before arriving and therefore switched positions with our opposite.
I want to thank all of the players that represented our team
at Nationals and put up with my second year setting: Sandy
Martin, Shannon Nelson, Michele Remus, Felicia Sardella, Sarah
Teslevich and Holly Watts. I’d also like to thank the
additional players that represented our team during the Arizona
region that were unable to go: Andi DeMark, Stephanie Martin,
Ashanti Taylor and Melissa Carrington. It was fun and hopefully
we’ll see you in the BIG EASY!
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