Sept. 23, 2005
By Kris Kraushaar, Undergraduate Assistant Coach, Eric Chaghouri, Sophomore Libero and Matt Susson, Statistician

Sept. 12

The team and boosters spent the afternoon roaming the streets of Milan. Most everybody enjoyed the duomo, its piazza and its cuisine. After a short siesta, the squad left the Hotel Accademia for a smaller suburb of Milan, where UCLA squared off against the Asystel Milano squad.

Despite not having their sea legs, the weary Bruins mustered up some resolve to come out and top their opponents in a quick 3-set match (scores: 25-22, 28-26, 25-19). After the inital three, the two teams agreed to play a fourth, and then a fifth set, which featured the remainder of the Bruins' traveling squad.

Leading all Bruins in kills was Nick Scheftic with 10 kills on a blistering .560 hitting percentage; Paul George added 9, while team captain Damien Scott chipped in with 7. The Bruins, in total, hit .340, with 3 aces and 8 blocks. On a more somber note, however, starting setter Dennis Gonzelez went down in the 2nd set with an ankle injury, and was subsequently replaced by senior Aaron Dodd.

Sept. 13

After a rather short and inconsistent night's sleep, the unadjusted Bruins, with boosters in tow, shipped off for the Shakespearean city of Verona. Upon arrival, the team formed several search parties and scoured the area for inexpensive food, Italian souvenirs, and ragazze. Among the sights of Verona were its colosseum (out of commission due to an upcoming concert), the Capulet residence (home to a rather touristy balcony of literary fame), a sprawling piazza, complete with fountain, gardens, and far too many restaurants to mention.

A few hours, a few "gelati," a brand new printer, and several Euro later, the Bruins boarded the bus once again as they headed to Vicenza Volley's rather nice facilities.

The match proved to be far more hotly contested than predicted, and far more interesting than the accompanying bus ride. The Bruins dropped a close first game 22-25, but rallied for convincing wins in both the second and third games, winning 25-16 and 25-21, respectively. UCLA hit a snag in the fourth game, dropping it 20-25. In the fifth game the Bruins squandered a 13-10 advantage, falling 16-18.

Captain Damien Scott led all UCLA hitters with 17 kills on a .360 clip. Paul George contributed with 13 kills on .330, and opposite David Russell chimed in with 10 of his own. Aaron Dodd, in his first start of "Italian Tour '05," posted 4 aces of his own. The Bruins ended the night hitting .280, with 13 blocks and 18 digs.

Post-match, the players, parents and staff hopped back on the bus, this time stopping in Pordenone for the evening.

Sept. 14

The Bruins awoke to a lovely continental breakfast, followed by a day of do-it-yourself Italian tourism in the small Italian city of Pordenone. New to the Bruins was the concept of "Siesta," which favors not the weary traveler, nor the shopaholic, as most retail stores tend to close their doors from approximately 1-4 pm. The Bruins, embracing their newfound Italian roots, joined the locals in Siesta, tapping the hotel's many beds for rather lengthy naps. This afternoon's slumber proved effective as the Bruins made their way across town to Treviso to face off against Oderzo Treviso.

Returning tonight was the Bruins' starting setter Dennis Gonzalez who appeared unfazed by his recent ankle injury.

Behind strong defense and solid blocking, UCLA jumped on Oderzo Treviso early in the first and second games to win 25-18 and 25-19, respectively. In the third game, Oderzo came up with some key plays to steal the third set 20-25. The Bruins never lost focus as they rattled off several points early on in the fourth game to eventually win 25-19.

Leading the Bruins, once again, was team captain Damien Scott with 14 kills on a .500 clip. Middle Blocker Nick Scheftic posted his best performance of the trip with 12 kills on .500 hitting. David Russel added 11, while Paul George had 8 and hit .500. The team ended the night with a stellar .440 hitting percentage, 10 blocks, and 15 digs.

Post-match, the UCLA Bruin family joined the Oderzo Treviso squad for a family style Italian dinner on site. The next day, the Bruins headed to Venice for the day before ultimately making the trek to Maribor, Slovenia for a two-match stint.

September 15

After an early wake-up call, the Bruin traveling party pushed off for the sea-going city of Venice. After a comatose bus ride to the port of Punta Sabbionne the Bruins found themselves just a puddle-skip away from a maze of Venetian canals. Despite the brevity of the seafaring, Bruin landlubbers found themselves slightly squeamish upon arrival at their final destination. They were greeted at the city gates by hordes of corn-hungry pigeons who eagerly posed for pictures with the Bruin entourage. The popular destinations proved to be the piazza and church of San Marco, the Rialto bridge and various gelateriae.

September 16

The Bruins awoke for their first day in Tolar-infested Slovenia. The Bruins were given free reign over all of the city of Maribor. The most popular activities for the day appeared to be hopping the #6 bus towards downtown and then wandering around looking for something else to do once there. We were in Slovenia to play two divsion A1 teams. Division A1 teams have up to a $5 million budget and boast Olympic-caliber players from all over the world.

On the floor for OK Kamnik were four National Team players and two familiar faces (former Long Beach State 49ers). The Bruins wound up on the wrong side of what quickly became a one-sided match, dropping 4 of 5 games 18-25 18-25 25-21 23-25 10-15. The bruins' fourth match in five days appeared to be taking its toll as the team finished hitting .120 with 24 service errors. Freshmen Blake Taylor and DJ Stromath both played well off the bench with 6 and 4 kills, respectively. Carrying the brunt of the offensive load for the Bruins was Nick Scheftic with 16 kills, hitting .677 on the night.

September 17

After a reasonably short bus ride that included a quick short-cut through Austria, the Bruins with boosters in tow found themselves on the opposite side of Slovenia in the city of Lendava. Greeted by the local magistrate, the Bruins were treated to a splendid luncheon at the local hotel, including a sampling of the finest wine the city had to offer. Subsequently, the team played the inaugural match in Lendava's newest volleyball facility. The Bruins quickly discovered that Eastern Europe knows how to lay the smack down. They lost 13-25 18-25 21-25 26-24 13-15. Damien Scott and Nick Scheftic finished with double-digit kills to lead the Bruins in the losing effort against OK Maribor, which proved to be the best team on our schedule.

Following the match, the Bruin faithful engorged themselves on their first of two traditional Slavic meals within a stones' throw of the Hungarian and Croatian borders.

September 18

Unfortunately for the Bruins, the weather-permitting activities for the day were not permitted by the weather. Instead, most of the team spent the day relaxing in the ski-resort's indoor spa. Nick Scheftic took enough time off from kicking @#% to get a full-body massage. Dinner was spent at the top of the mountain after a 20-minute gondola ride for the second traditional Slavic dinner in as many days. Needless to say, those Slavs know how to feed a small army of large people.

September 19

The all day bus ride was no fun!

September 20

After the Bruins' hellish travel day, they finally found themselves on the Adriatic coast. It was a short jaunt to the city of Ravenna, which they were told was at one time a capital of the Byzantine Empire. A few of the unimportant members of the travel party found the city to be quite disorienting and had to run in order to catch the bus before it left them in the city.

On the court, the Bruins proved that it could have been the Slavic food that was keeping them from playing well in Slovenia as they posted a legitimate five-game win (25-13 22-25, 21-25, 25-18, 15-12) victory against Forli. Damien Scott once again led the Bruins with 14 kills hitting .440 and Nick Scheftic continued his strong play posting 10 kills. David Russell contributed 9 kills and 3 aces, but player of the match honors belonged to Jamie Diefenbach with 9 kills on .570 hitting with what team statistician Matt Susson says is a record-high 9 blocks.

September 21

Another early wake up call awaited us as we were planning to leave the country of Italy yet again for the tiny republic of San Marino. Since most of the team didn't even know that this country even existed, expectations about finding anything worth seeing were probably not very high. Our tour leaders, Tim and Cory had driven by it countless times, but had never made the trek up to the hilltop city. With a sheer cliff on one side of the mountain and another slightly less vertical slope on the other, we were never without a view of the Italian countryside. Needless to say, San Marino far exceeded everybody's expectations. We hopped back on the bus for the hundredth time of the trip and drove to Falconara Maritima, another beach city. A meal only inches from the sand was waiting for us when we arrived there. After giving up on trying to eat all the food that was laid before us, we staggered out of the restaurant one by one for the comfort of our hotel rooms.

September 22

Ths day was spent on our own in the city of Falconara Maritima. Given free reign over the city, people walked off in all directions looking for places to eat and things to do.However, we found that the tourist season was over, which meant that almost all of the beachfront shops and restaurants were closed. Since most of the day was spent lounging around, the guys were more fiery than normal and came out with a great deal of gusto against Castelfidardo.The team won 3 of 5 games 25-22 15-25 25-19 21-25 25-17. Nick Scheftic once again led the Bruins with 22 kills hitting .590 with 3 aces and 4 blocks to prove that he can do more than hit the ball hard.

September 23

A drive to another smaller Italian city was waiting for us in the morning. This day trip was to the city of Urbino. We were quickly told by the team's resident art history major and team statistician, Matt Susson, that Urbino was the hometown of Federico da Montefeltro. Myself, being what is referred to as a "south campus" student had no idea what he was talking about.

The team once again appeared well-rested as they won 3 of 4 games against Assisi Sira Falconara by scores of 25-20 25-23 26-24 17-25. Nick Scheftic once again led the Bruins with 12 kills, making it his sixth straight double-digit kill match. Other players with double-digit kills were Damien Scott with 11 and Jamie Diefenbach with 10 kills to go along with his 3 blocks and an ace.

September 24

Getting on the bus to Ostia proved far easier than most of our other jouneys since we knew it was to be our last. After a quick jaunt to the other side of the boot, we found ourselves in a port suburb of Rome. After throwing our bags into our hotel rooms we hopped back on the bus and shot off to Rome. Our destination was the ancient city, first stop: the Colosseuum. The players, per diem in hand, were overjoyed to learn of Rome's ongoing "Heritage Days," a two-day, panhistorical stint in which all the sights and sounds of Rome are free to locals and tourists alike. Among the sights seen: the Roman Forum and the ruins of Palatine Hill, San Pietro in Vincoli and Michalengelo's Moses, the Pantheon, various sprawling piazze, and the ever-impressive Trevi Fountain, a site rich with entrepreneurial rose salesmen; always a pleasure. A quick walk back to the bus, and we closed the chapter on Rome: Day 1.

September 25

We awoke to a Nutella-filled breakfast before heading to Vatican City. The majority of the Bruin travel entourage found themselves amidst a 3+ hour line, in the hopes of glimpsing the Vatican Museums, capped off by the Sistine Chapel. Several of the travel party were lucky enough to witness the Sunday Mass, which, on the last Sunday of the month, is led by the Pope himself. Still others chose to forego the museum lines, opting instead to spend the afternoon oogling cavernous St. Peter's Basilica. A fourth rogue sect of the squad boarded the A line Metro in the hopes of visiting the National Museum of Roman Art (note: upon arrival at the Roma Termini station, the weary traingoers were greeted by a hoard of boisterous, pink-shirt clad, riot-prone soccer hooligans). Post-sightseeing, we bused over to the afternoon match vs. Ostia Volleyball Club.

The 3-game exhibition match ended in a 2-1 split, to Ostia's favor (scores: 18-25, 25-16, 21-25). Leading the Bruins in kills was middle blocker Nick Scheftic, who rattled off 12 kills on .690 hitting. Outside hitter Paul George posted 8 on a stellar .540 clip, though sophomore middle blocker D.J. Stromath was unstoppable, finishing the match a perfect 8 kills on 8 swings.

Following the match, we all headed back into Rome, after which everyone parted ways in the hopes of searching out somewhere to eat.

September 26

On our last day in Italy, our travel party once again employed a divide and conquer technique to cover all of Rome. Many people made it back to Vatican City to explore what they had missed from the day before while others stayed in the hotel in Ostia to make good use of their newly acquired Italian Speedos at the beach just across the street. The Vatican group was a little disheartened to find that the crowds from the day before were not just a Sunday occurrence, but were still able to finish up the sightseeing that they had started the previous day.

The match that night was the grand opening of a new facility in Ostia, only a few minutes from our hotel. The slight smell of paint in the air and the very fine layer of sawdust let us know that the construction of the building had barely met its deadline. Knowing that it would be their last competition for a few weeks, the team leapt out of the gates by winning the first 3 games 25-19, 27-25, 25-20. After the three-game win, the teams again decided to stretch the match out by another two games with the Bruins mixing it up with different lineups. Game scores for the final two games were 12-25 and 24-26. Damien Scott led the Bruins with an impressive 18 kills, hitting .580 with 5 aces. Other top performers were Paul George and Nick Scheftic who each contributed 10 kills and 2 blocks, with George hitting a team-high .620.

Following the match, the travel party enjoyed our final, lengthy, Italian dinner. Spirits were high for the group even though we had a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call looming on the horizon. After dinner, we had to pack up for the final time and contemplate how to cram all our Italian purchases into our suitcases even though most of them were over-stuffed on our trip over to Europe.

September 27

4:30 a.m. came much earlier than anticipated. As we crawled onto the bus, the group was divided about whether or not they wanted to come home. Some were eager to return home after living out of a suitcase. Traveling from place to place had taken its toll on their sanity. Others would have stayed in Italy forever and have already started mentally preparing a return visit. A final group would have stayed in Italy just to avoid the 11+ hours of air travel that awaited. The long travel day passed by uneventfully as we made it back home and almost without exception went straight to bed.

Overall

The trip proved to be a great success as the team went 6-3 and gained a lot of valuable game experience which most other volleyball teams do not have the opportunity to obtain. Living in hotel rooms and traveling by bus also allowed the team to grow closer and hopefully come together as a cohesive unit. As it was most of the players' first trip out of North America, it may have also given them the travel bug and made them think more about exploring. Italy was a spectacular place to do this kind of a tour because of the comparable level of volleyball and the numerous opportunities to see new things.