USA Youth Team Wrap-Up
01/06/07
by Coach Shelton Collier

After winning the tournament in Izola, Slovenia on December 30, we were off for a couple free days in Maribor, an awesome ski resort in Slovenia. We all had rooms overlooking this world class ski slope, which was very cool. Our players had free time to ski, sled, snowboard, rocket-ski and enjoy the massive fireworks displays. Most of our players wore out the slopes, either as veterans or as beginners, both equally entertaining to observe.

Cory and Tim really have everything set up great for us here. They really do a great job of making sure everything is just right for the players and for the staff. This is truly a special time for our players. This is the first time I have had my wife, DiAnn, on a trip with me while I am coaching a USA Team. Normally, I am so busy with practices, video, scouting, and matches, that I have no real time off, so with this trip being different, it has been a blast for both of us. She has had a great time with the staff, players, player parents, and the locals we have met.

January 3, we departed for Zagreb, Croatia for a match against the Croatian Youth National Team in their home training center. We decided to play Bojana Todorovic in 3 different positions in this match, game one as a hitter, game two as our libero, and game three as our 5-1 setter. With all of our other players sharing the workload and playing two games each, we still were able to sweep them 3-0, which was great for us. In my experience, Croatia is consistently one of the top teams in the world, so this was an important match for us.

January 4, we found ourselves in Belgrade, Serbia for the Volleystar Tourmanent. It seems to be a very big deal that a team from the USA is playing here. Our players saw first hand the results of the bombing from just 7 years ago, and Todorovic, who was born here, was telling our players how it felt to actually be here during the bombings. We are being welcomed very warmly by everyone here, and have celebrity status with police escorts and a strong police presence around us at all times.

We opened with a 2-0 win over Red Star, the top club in Belgrade. Later that day, after a cold and windy sightseeing tour, we had a very impressive 2-0 win over Pula, Croatia. We had some very good performances in this one.

January 5 we had a morning match with Postar, another big club from Belgrade, and we won 2-0 as well. We are making steady progress as a team. Because we are not practicing at all, we are making adjustments and making system progress on the fly during matches, and our team has done very well with this. Later in the day, following an informative visit to the US Embassy, we had a tough semifinal match scheduled with Mladost, a Croatian team with several Youth National Team players. We played well and won 2-0, nailing down a spot in tomorrow's championship match.

That night, the tournament hosted a big party for all the teams at a nightclub for dancing and mingling. It is good for our players that we are playing in the final, later in the day, as opposed to one of the earlier playoff matches, especially after being out late. At the end of the night, Dana Hutchinson was presented with a nice trophy from the tournament director for being the best dancer of all the teams from the whole tournament. The tournament organizer is a very special guy, and worked hard to create a special event for us, and he was more than successful.

January 6, we had a rematch with Pula, Croatia for the championship. They came out very motivated, so we really had to turn it up. All 10 players played key roles as we did win a 2-0 hard fought final. Kendall Bateman, who continued to make progress with her setting and leadership was voted best setter. Tarah Murrey was voted best spiker (no surprise there) and Sydney Yogi was named MVP, which was very special.

We finished the tour with a game record of 26-3, winning our last 11 straight.

In just about every way possible, the trip was extremely successful. It was very well organized by BIP, our players really enjoyed every aspect of it on and off the court. I am hoping I can work again with BIP somehow in the near future.

As we wrap up this trip, I have several thoughts: This group of USA players really handled themselves well, were mature and well behaved off the court and really represented USA well on the court. Erikka Gulbranson, a veteran of many USA HP teams at every level, stepped in and did an awesome job in every way as our assistant coach. Dan Cahill, an experienced trainer was a great addition to the staff as well. 

Getting a team together, and playing right away upon arrival, then traveling a lot and sightseeing in addition to matches, and having no practices, presented some challenges. However, this group managed to play a lot of high level volleyball, which is quite impressive for this age group. We were able to give significant court time to all the players, and they all stepped up and did well. It was pretty special to hear " U-S-A" chants from young boys and other fans in the crowd, especially with the political considerations.

I am aware that there are some ill informed people that will bring up the "they already have the team picked, no one else has a chance" as tryouts approach for the World Championship training team. Just to assure everyone that they could not be more wrong. We will have a significant number of key positions open and available for players at tryouts. Additionally, players who may be assigned to A2 or A3 will have an opportunity to get moved up after proving themselves, just as 3 players on this trip did.

Thanks again to Cory and Tim for an awesome trip, thanks to the parents for financially making it happen, and thanks to the players for handling everything so well and representing USA Volleyball so well.

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