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The Final Entry
Days 10 and 11, January 17 and 18, 2006
By Tim Kelly
Our final full day of tour saw the team departing another gorgeous and clear Innsbruck day for Munich. The 3 hour drive took us through some rain and sleet, and we started to see the snow melt away as we moved north into Germany.
We arrived at the “Regatta” (home of the rowing and kayak events of the 1972 Munich Olympics) around 1:00pm and got settled in. After a second embarrassing team stop at McDonalds on this trip (gotta eat fast sometimes) the majority of the group spent the afternoon at the Dachau Concentration Camp.
At 5:30 we were loading up and heading over to the Lohhof Gym for our final matches. About half the delegation decided to skip the volley and head into Munich City Center, so we dropped them at the Oberschleissheim S-Bahn Station before heading to the gym with the agreement that they would get back to Luna Rosa for dinner (a great Italian restaurant right near the station) to meet us around 10:00pm. These experiences are always great for the girls because those that later want to play overseas will certainly have to be comfortable using public transportation and figuring things like this out.
The first match pitted 8 of our girls on a mixed team vs. SV Lohhof. They are the top team in the German 2nd League, but unfortunately many of their top players weren’t there and I believe we won 3-2. It was an informal match, and Cory and I spent the majority of our time watching with visiting coaches Tony Westerman (Danish National Team and VC Kanti Schauffhausen in Switzerland – current home of Jillian Mazzarella) and Alex Waibl (VC Stuttgart, German 2nd Division) as they were there looking at players for next season.
The second match had our other 7 girls playing vs. Carol Hamilton (Cal State Dominguez Hills), Ashlie Hain (UC Irvine), and Kelly Wing (UC Irvine) and their 2nd Division German team from Stuttgart. It was good to have our players around a few last Americans, and we were lucky enough to get these three to come out to dinner with us and also spend the night at the Regatta sharing their stories and experiences with the team.
We had a great family style Italian meal at Luna Rosa, and then shuttled everyone back to the farm for a late night of games, story-telling, email-sharing and the like.
The morning came fast as half the group left for the Munich Airport on our 4:30am bus (all departures between 6:00-10:00am) and the rest left on the 7:30am bus.
As of mid-afternoon on January 18, 2006 here is a list of players that are still in Europe and/or with teams:
Leslie Kuhn, Signed in Valencia, Spain
Summer Jennings, Signed in Linz, Austria
Lindsay Phillips, Signed in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
Shelby Jordan, Trying out in Frieburg, Germany
Liz Goubeaux, Will be trying out in Amiens, France
I want to thank all of our coaches one last time. We were really lucky to have a great group of floor leaders on this one, and some truly great people. Erikka, Ray, Chris, Ashley, and Kristen – Dikuji, Hvala, und Vielen Dank!
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