USA Youth Team Journal
Thursday, December 28, 2006
By Sydney Yogi

Hey everyone! So we are almost finished with our first full day here in Europe.  I am sitting here in the restaurant of our hotel in Izola, Slovenia trying my best to stay awake as I type this.  I am so glad to be here and it was so worth the five hour plane ride and then another ten hour plane ride and finally a one hour plane ride (I’m from Hawaii so it was a bit farther trip for me) to get here.  We arrived at about 1:00pm in Venice, Italy yesterday and took a tour of Venice and all its beauty.  I was amazed at all of the architecture, the view of the Mediterranean Sea, and the unique people constantly bustling around the busy city.  My most memorable moment of Venice is definitely  going to be trying to follow all of the mini yellow signs telling you where you’re going while freezing our butts off and then the frustration of not being able to find another one after you could swear that the previous one told you to go that way.  Too bad we only had a couple of hours there because I definitely would’ve wanted to do more exploring, or rather wandering.

After Venice we took a two hour bus ride to our current location, Izola, Slovenia.  Everyone was exhausted and was so happy after being told that we were allowed to sleep on the bus.  We arrived at our hotel, which is right across the street from the Adriatic Sea, ate dinner, and went straight to sleep.  This morning we got to see a little more of the city as we drove to our first practice.  Everyone was a little nervous because we hadn’t played volleyball in a while, but by watching our practice, no one would ever be able to tell.  We got on the court and just played.  Everything went so smoothly and if you didn’t know we had just gotten off a plane the night before, it never would’ve came to mind.  Passers executed, setters were on target, middles were up and ready, hitters were slamming.  We all couldn’t wait to play our first match that afternoon against the home team, Slovenia.

Next, we walked to the tournament venue and had opening ceremonies.  As soon as we walked in the gym, people’s noses bunched up, it smelled like smoke.  I know we all aren’t very comfortable with some of the customs here, but I also know that it is such a great experience to be exposed to all of these different playing and living conditions and something we would never find at home.  At the opening ceremonies, all of the countries were introduced while Guns and Roses and “I Love Rock’n’Roll” played in the background.  It was funny to see all of the girls singing along!  After that we walked back to our hotel for lunch and to get ready for Slovenia.

Ok, so our game didn’t quite go as planned. We lost, but I don’t necessarily think its such a bad thing.  Our first game had a solid beginning.  We were rolling and everything was going well. Hitters were banging and everyone was playing excellent defense.  I think 16-12 and then because of passing breakdown and just mental errors we let Slovenia back in and lost 25-23.  The second game was much better.  We played hard and determined not to let them beat us.  Because the tournament was formatted where every match is three games no matter what, the winner of the pool was determined by looking at your game record.  Since we had already lost the first, we at least wanted to win the match instead of our initial goal of winning all three games.  Our intensity in the second game was dramatically different from the first and there was energy and yelling and high fives flying around the court.  Being out there, I could feel a different team.  A more fired up and relentless team.  The score showed that and we won the second game 25-15. 

The third game was a different story.  I’m not sure if we were ever up, but I remember it being really close the whole game.  We were playing with them, not above them, our energy and communication died down again, and we had more passing trouble.  We lost game three 25-20.  At the end of the game, I’m not gonna lie, I definitely felt like “Oh my gosh. What are we gonna do.  We played horrible”, but Coach Shelton sat us down and let us talk it out as a team, and then offered his insight, which I think helped a lot.  We got a chance to talk it out and hear what everyone thought of how we played and what went wrong and what we could do better.  Most people shared that we could play more as a team and communicate more.  I think we could’ve done this and just had more energy in general.  I probably made this whole first match seem really horrible, but I think everyone learned so much from it already and it will only make us better prepared for tomorrow and the rest of the tour.

All in all, I think I can speak for everyone when I say we are enjoying ourselves a lot and having a great time in Europe with each other, the coaching staff, and, of course, Tim and Cory.  I know each day will get better and better, as will the competition, starting with Hungary and Czech Republic tomorrow.  We need to win those two games in order to be playing in the first place match and I am confident our team will pull it off together.  As for right now, dinner is calling me! And then I’ll probably go up to my room, maybe watch some television in Slovenian, and fall fast asleep.  Until tomorrow, Sydney

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