Journal December 28, 2006
Match Scores
Team Florida Juniors (18U)
OK Postar 25-21, 25-22
OK Crikvenica 25-18, 25-13

Team Jax Juniors (16U)
OK Ljubno 25-15, 25-11
OK Luka Koper 17-25, 24-26

Day 2 - Jax 16 with OK

Team Jax Youth (14U)
OK Lazarevac 13-25, 20-25
OK Strahinja 25-14, 25-18

Day 2 - Jax 14 with OK


GAME DAY
By: Jordan & Elyssa – Vestavia Hills HS (AL)

So last night, the power went out on our hotel floor and our room got to breakfast late. We all woke up with MaKayla, who is from Bartram Trial/JJVA in Jacksonville, Florida, banging hard on our door. Our room is Megan, from Mountain Brook/BVC in Alabama, Ariel, who is from Summit/Thunder Cats in Colorado (the team just calls her Colorado) and us. Being late to breakfast was a great first impression on our coach. We ate a bunch of foreign food, which consists of an egg “surprise” and cereal.

Then all the teams met in the hotel lobby and we began our walk to the opening ceremony. We walked into the gym and we were sized up by all the very large and TALL European players. A man began to speak in Slovenian to welcome and introduce the teams. We didn’t know that he was doing that until a lady came up and spoke in English. He then began to announce all the teams. All the teams then began to proceed to the floor; we stood in lines next to the other teams as he introduced the rest. Our team is playing in the 16 and under age group and there are 15 teams representing USA, Serbia, Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia.

After the ceremony, we got on a bus to go to Koper, about 10 minutes from our hotel. We entered a really nice, huge gym and got ready for our first match. We warmed up and were all a little nervous since we had never played together. Our team consists of myself- Elyssa- Vestavia Hills/BVC, Jordan- Vestavia Hills/Magic City, Megan, Ariel, and MaKayla who were mentioned above, Anny- Providence/JJVA, Paige- Nease/JJVA, Kim- Nease/SAVA, and Kristin- Nease/JJVA. We were eager to see what we could accomplish with no practicing. In our first match, we were a little out of sync and nervous. Being a setter, I was eager to please all the hitters, however out of system balls were difficult and required us to communicate more than usual. We played OK LJUBNO, a club from Ljubno, Slovenia. We ended up with a win. We beat them 25-15 and 25-11. We were very excited to win our first match. Our second match we played the home team, OK LUKA KOPER. They had a lot of fans. Their level of play was good, most players jump served or served very aggressively. This caused our ball control to be less and our first score was 17-25. Coach Janice- Bartram Trail/JJVA encouraged us to become aggressive ourselves and focus on tough serves. With that information we made adjustments and played the best we had all day, however we lost the match with a hard battle 24-26. Every player left feeling good and knowing that tomorrow we will play much better and to the best of our ability. After the match we had an hour and a half to wait for the bus, so we ordered pizza in the gym which has a pub upstairs. We ate great pizza and drank cokes before returning to our hotel to eat yet, another European dinner. (Hi to all our family and friends and Coach Tammy).

OUR FIRST EUROPEAN MATCH
Nikki and Kirsten from Orlando, FL

Today is Kirsten’s birthday, Happy 14th Birthday to you!! Our team had never played before together either. We have players from Jacksonville and Orlando. We were nervous and eager to play our first match. We warmed up like the European players, which means, we jogged, did leg work, stretched and then peppered. The European teams warm up by hitting leftside then rightside then serving we share the court the whole time. The ball we played with is called a GALA ball, made in Czech. It has NO CUSHION and is hard to control. Thus our passing and defense was off and our hitters often put the ball on the wall. We were treated to playing on a 7 foot net. That is also weird for us as our setter and hitters had a hard time with blocking. We were actually over jumping and getting the ball between our elbows, which do not work well for blocking. Our line up was set and Nikki was libero, Kirsten and Rachel played middle, Kamryn was setting, Chelsea and Jennifer played outside and Cheyenne hit rightside. Our Defensive player Natasha played for Cheyenne in the backrow.

The gym was warm and really nice. We lost our first match as we did not serve well or pass well. We played OK LAZAREVAC from Serbia. They defeated us
13-25, 20-25. After that our Coach Bill-JJVA talked to us about serving and using our hands more to pass. The European teams serve well and really hit hard. Our second match we played OK STRANIJAN from Serbia as well. We played much better. Nikki passed great, Kamryn set better and both our middles adjusted and we played great. We defeated them in 2 games.

After the match we ate pizza and then drove back to the hotel to eat again. Tomorrow we will play again and learn more. (Hi to our family and friends and Coach German)

Kicking Euro-@$$ and Taking Names
By: Kendahl

Dear Diary,

Today is Jeff Reavis’s 36th birthday. His present was us beating a club team from some country with a vampire outside hitter. She had jet black hair with a 3-4 inch widow’s peak. The next team we killed was from Croatia. They watched everything hit the ground. Although we have never played together, we meshed really well. The net was a good 4-5 inches lower than the American standard net. Definitely took advantage of that!!! All of our hands were well over that net, except for the libero. Marissa. At the Hotel Marina, all the meals are buffet and so is the ICE CREAM! We love to eat the ice cream.

Time to Meet the Team from Fla.

Heather deJongh from California (Not Asian despite her -ONG last name) arrived while I was sleeping. Eva never stops talking, neither does Meghan. Erin, our right-side, is from Alabama and loves to read (Sorry she didn’t call! Phones don’t work well.). Shelbey has really big hair and almost got assassinated by our elevator. Courtney and Marissa LOVE to shop. Ashley is from Gainesville and is a Rubix Cube champion (Eva says). Jeff­2 like do their hair EXACTLY ALIKE and wear the same shoes/clothes. I, Kendahl, love hitting over-passes and wearing fuzzy slippers.

So now that everyone is summed up, its time to have a European Coca-cola.
P.S. Hi mom and dad.

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