-courtesy of Tim Kelly

On Monday the 4th the team played in Nafels, Switzerland (thanks Reudi for your ability to arrange so much hospitality at the last minute) where Doug McBride would try out for a few days also. From there it was a long drive north to Munster, Germany and a day of rest. We were heading into the home stretch and we needed to try and prepare for some of the upcoming tournaments and hopefully find a way to place a few more players.

After another match in Moers on Wednesday night, the team traveled to Belgium to play vs. Zorgvliet Antwerpen on Thursday (thanks to Paul for setting this up and Kyle for his hospitality of the tour players). The group picked up Ratledge and Salak (Katz had flown home and Mulvey had flown to start the season with his new team in Portugal) after the match and headed to Bottrop for our stay at the Courtyard by Marriott’s VC Bottrop Classic.

Thanks to Wolfgang Donat and the VC Bottrop team we were in a nice hotel as a team for the first time in a while. We were hoping that this much needed rest and the great meals we were provided would do the trick. We needed all the help we could get as our opponents were Bayern Wuppertal, E-ON Vienna, and VC Bottrop (the home team).

We lost our opening match to Vienna with scores of 23-25, 23-25, and ??? and plenty of chances to win each set. This was one of our better games of the tour (that I saw) and although it was disappointing to lose, it was nice to see some of the guys finally step it up and play well against one of the top teams in Europe.

Saturday saw us take an embarrassing beat down by a much stronger Wuppertal team, and then to seal our fate we choked vs. the second division home team to take last place with an 0-3 record. This was our worst showing in this tournament (our 3rd year) and I just hope that we manage to get invited back in the future to redeem the Tour name.

Wolfgang and the Tournament Board were gracious enough to give us Burger King coupons and Warner Brothers Movie World passes for Monday in spite of our showing and the team spent a fun day at the park with the boys from Vienna. Later that night we again played Moers and again lost. At this point we had lost Doug McBride to Schuttorf and Josh Palacios to a flight back to the USA but we were expecting Mitch Sadowsky to arrive the next morning so that we would again have a setter (James was still in Budapest).

Wednesday morning the team made the long drive to Luxembourg to check in for a special match. The town of Hesperingen had just opened a new sport hall and we were invited to play in the opening exhibition match vs. our rivals from Germany, Wuppertal (they obviously invited us BEFORE the Bottrop showing). We were shown exceptional hospitality including a beautiful hotel, meals, and even training times in the hall.

The match was on Thursday and we lost 0-4. I heard that we put on a decent showing, but that is a match that we really needed to win – or at least go five to give the crowd a show. That night the team was invited to the mayor’s mansion for a post game meal and cocktails and generally treated to a wonderful time. Many thanks to our hosts (thanks Leo!) for such a gracious invitation.

Friday saw the team play a last match vs. Moers for the season (Mr. Krivec, Heinz, and the team/coach were very accommodating this summer – thank you) and then we were set for the closing of the Tour with our annual showing at Gaby Eilts Nordhorn Tournament.