Changes have been happening.....but the winning continues!!

So, I have been back now for two weeks and few things are different. The one thing that has stayed the same is that we are still winning, 2-0 since the Christmas break and we won a tournament in Heidelberg the day I returned to Germany! It has been a crazy two weeks especially since we now have another player on our team. The Friday before our first game of the second half of the year we were introduced to our newest player Brynn from Southern California. We didn’t really need another player because we weren’t losing any games but we when one of our starting players decided that she couldn’t handle Volleyball, school, her boyfriend and family commitments the team brought Brynn in. It was sad to lose her but Brynn so far has been a great addition to our little family we have here on Färberstraße! The other change that has been made is that I am now sharing my room with Brynn so our large apartment for 2 originally has now become a smaller more crowded apartment for 4! But it’s our cozy home!

So onto volleyball......we had our first game on the 17th against Lauchringen who was currently last in our league not having won any games this season. We didn’t play our cleanest match of volleyball but we were able to pull out the victory in 3 sets and under one hour, two of our team goals. The final scores were 25-11, 25-19, 25-15.

Playing a little defense.

This victory put us at 10-0 and having even more of a stranglehold on first place in our league. There really isn’t much else to tell about this game as it was really scrappy volleyball and I was even able to get a break and not play most of the 3rd set to get other girls playing time.

My last game at Left side....

Another change is that I have moved to the right side of the court leaving Brynn and Michele playing on the left side of the court. It was a little interesting in practice last week as I haven’t played much right side since beginning of 4th year of university. It takes a while to get used to hitting the ball across your body and more responsibility blocking. Hopefully the transition will continue to be as smooth as it was for our first game against Konstanz.

On Sunday we had the privilege of getting up at 8am to leave for our game near the Swiss border in the beautiful town of Konstanz. In our last game against them we really struggled to play consistent throughout the whole match. We had many moments of when we were very good but it was the moments where we weren’t so good that lead to trouble and the match being finished in 5 when we easily could have finished it in 3!

We arrived nice and early for our game.....which was okay because it was a beautiful day! The sun was shining and it was a good 8 or so degrees warmer than our little town of Villingen. You could tell from warm up that it was going to be a good game from us. The mood was light and almost a little jocular; everyone was loose and ready to go, no nerves for our first game with our new player!

We started our match off with a bang, 2 big kills (one from me) and some strong service allowed us to jump out to an early lead big which we never release. We were digging balls, chasing some down and strong service allowed us to win the first set 25-17.

The second set was a different story....we didn’t attack nearly as well and missed 4 consecutive services in a row during the crucial middle part of the set. We did have another lead early but with our mental errors in the middle we squandered that early lead and needed some big blocks towards the end of set, a couple which came from the middle blocker and I!! With the score being tied at 24’s Konstanz took a ball that was served out and went down 25-24, and gave us the chance to win the set. On a strong service, which was surprising because of our great service during the set we took the last point and a second set victory 26-24.

The third set was much like the first. We passed well and were able to run a faster offence leading to many one on one blocks and one and half blocks. We should have been getting kills left right and center but this time Konstanz was making it a little more difficult on us by digging many of our hard driven balls. But we were still able to prevail on many of the rallies because of our good free ball plays, also known as “danke” balls here! We were able to close out the third set with the final score being 25-17 again. Another victory which now puts us at 11-0 on the season and 2 games up on Sinsheim and 3 games up on Mannheim because they lost last weekend in 5 to Weisloch. Hopefully the victories keep on coming!

Last Home Game before the Holidays

So sorry for the late late posting but I decided to take a break from blogging and figured I'd get it done when I got back to Germany on the 10th. It is now the 21st and yes I have been back in Villingen since the 13th so I figured it was about time to talk about our last home game before Christmas.....

On Saturday December 20th we had our last game before the break. We were 8-0 so far this season and were playing Mannheim who was 7-1 and right on our tails in the standings. This was a “make or break” game for our season. A win would put us comfortably in first place and a loss would put us a little bit on our heels going into the second half of the season. It was going to be an epic battle.......

Our games normally start at 7pm but by quarter past 6 there was well over 1000 people already in the gym with another 400 expected to show up. For the first time this season we had our own drummers! There were 6 of them sitting in the 3^rd row in the center of the bleachers pounding away on their steel drums from 6:30 until the game finished around 9:30. Thank god I took an Advil before the game because I don’t think I would have made it through the whole game without a pounding headache.

The fans that were there at 6:15

Just before the match started they opened the third side of the bleachers revealing a couple hundred more fans who weren't able to find seats in the main bleachers. It was amazing how many people were there! They estimated that there was around 1400 people at our game, definitely the most that I have ever played in front of!

Honestly I don't really need to talk about the first 3 games as they were pretty crappy and we found ourselves down 2-1 going into the fourth game. We lost the first game with 3 consecutive errors on match point to lose our first, first set of the year. We were able to recover in the second game but the volleyball was still filled with lots of errors by both teams.

The third game we lost, marking the first time our team had been on the brink of elimination this season. We needed to recover for the fourth game and for the first time this season I wasn't sure that we were going to win the game. I was actually nervous going into the 4th game. The scores in the first 3 games were 23-25, 25-22, and 24-26.

The 4th game was one of the longest games that I have ever played in. The final score being 35-33 in our favour! Again though I thought we weren't going to win as we made numerous hitting errors and were down early and often. We were finally able to string some points together! Once the score hit 26-26 we kept taking the lead with the serve but weren't able to close out the match. We continued to trade side outs until finally we got the victory! Everyone was in a frenzy and so pumped up for the final game!

We started the 5th game on fire with yours truly serving 5 points in a row to go into the side switch up 8-3. We continued our good play to go up 13-8 only to let them back into the game when they tied it up at 14. Finally after the biggest side out of the game and serving for the match our setter and Jana came up with a huge block on their outside hitter to finish the game and intact our perfect 9-0 record before the holiday's!

Victory number 9!!!

After a small celebration at Saki bar it was time to head home to good old Williams Lake. But first I had to take the train to Frankfurt where I went to the Christmas market with my friend Sebastian and toured his hometown of Langen.

The beautiful Christmas tree in Frankfurt. Too bad I didn't get any more photos because my camera died.

The next day it was time to depart home to Williams Lake. After a four hour delay out of Frankfurt, a missed connection and some luck to get on the last flight of the night to Vancouver from Calgary I arrived in Vancouver without my luggage. Rozey picked me up at the airport at 2am and returned me there at 6am that same morning so that I could fly up to Williams Lake. After 48 or so hours of exhausting travel I finally made it home to see my family for Christmas minus my luggage that showed up on the 28th! All in all I was very happy to be home!