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Day 8, Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005
By Cathy TURNER (will attend Green Bay)
Even though we are 4,823 (give or take a few) miles away from home, the Easter Bunny did not fail to grace us with his presence. We woke up this morning to find brightly colored tin pails filled with jellybeans, kisses, M&M’s, all topped off with a fuzzy chick. After wishing everyone a happy Easter, we headed off to the gym to play our first match, a quarterfinal against San Marino’s Junior National Team.
Starting out the match, we came out fairly well considering we aren’t a morning team. Late in the first game we learned about the meaning “home court advantage”. After two “out-of-rotation” calls and a double hit call we began to play a bit uptight. Letting the calls affect us too much, we lost the first game 23-25.
Game two, we came out with more intensity, ready to prove the refs wrong. It was a pretty close game in which we received at least two more “out-of-rotation” calls, but this game we didn’t let it affect us too much. We found our language barrier a problem when we couldn’t understand what the refs were trying to tell us. After a couple timeouts, we pulled ourselves together and took the win 25-20.
NL 18s with the San Marino Jr. National Team
In game three, we came out on fire, not letting them score more then 5 points in our first 20. We had a lot more energy and just played the game like we knew how. Dominating the match, with the score 25-9, we had the momentum going into the fourth game.
The start of the fourth game was close until we pulled away in the teens. In the middle of the game, the tables seemed to turn as the “home” team was given a yellow card. The coach was trying to argue a play and the refs didn’t like it too much. We took the momentum and ran with it, taking the game 25-16.
After our first match we headed off to a different gym to watch the Men’s Team “Moerstel” from Belgium take on the Junior National Team from India. After the Belgians came to watch our game, we felt that we owed it to them to give them our support. We practiced our cheers on the bus in order to be at our top performance.
Halfway through the Belgian match we were forced to leave, having our own match to play against Argentario Trento from Northern Italy. After one last “Go Belgium!” cheer we boarded the bus, but not without some loot. Our coaches, along with Tim as a translator, entered the Belgium’s bus and stole a case of their post-game beer. They left a note telling them that if they wanted it back they had to come to watch our match that night. Editor’s note: “Lonnie’s Fault on stealing the case of beer!”
In our match we started out slow, but towards the middle of the game we pulled together a bit, only it was too late. We lost game one 20-25. In game two we came out with more intensity and fought hard throughout the entire match, barely pulling out the win with a 26-24 win. In game three, we once again received unfair treatment from the refs as they blew a number of calls, but we still managed to take the win 25-21. With some upsetting calls in game four, our momentum began to crumble and we ended up losing the set 23-25. Going into game five we were focused on our “first to 8, first to 15” motto but it didn’t seem to work this time. In a very close, hard-fought match, we lost 13-15. Unfortunately, Moertsel didn’t show.
Team KNL with the eventual champions, Argentario Trento
Upon arriving at the cafeteria, we found out that the dance party that we thought was scheduled for Monday night was in fact tonight. So there we were, standing around all nice and sweaty from playing in our match, while there was music to be danced to. We rushed through our meal and sprinted to the bus to get back to our hotel to get ready. In record time, we threw on make up, did our hair, and crammed into cars to be shipped back to the party. Once we arrived we became the life of the party. Our Belgian friends showed up and the coaches were forced to surrender the beer. At around midnight, we were kicked out and sent back to our hotel rooms to prepare to take on the Swiss Junior National Team the next morning.
Party Time in Pordenone
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