Repeat in Dallas

What a crazy tournament Dallas turned out to be. All kinds of upsets and of course the most remarkable one being Stein and Mike getting a 17th and going uno dos adios. Shocking really. Particularly when you consider how consistent they were over all of last year. I will get back to that in the next post.

Dallas was a nice venue as far as parking lots go. It was right next to Arlington Stadium where the Texas Rangers play. There were a couple of grassy areas to sit and check out the action and the crowd was pretty good for a first time event. At least the first time in a long time. Hotels were all close by and a bunch of places to eat too. Phil and I hit up the SaltGrass Steakhouse twice in 3 nights. Unbelievably good steaks. Then we would hit up the Steak and Shake for a yummy shake. Could barely waddle much less walk after that but it sure hit the spot.

Playing wise, we were good enough to win. Outside of the finals I did not feel that we were playing our best game. The finals we definitely had our A game going. We received a bye in the first round and then played John Mayer and Brad Keenan. Absolute battle royal as we won something like 24-22 and 21-19. It seemed they hit every line. I give them props, they played really well. Phil and I were the beneficiaries of 3 calls by the ref which may have turned the tide for us. Two of them were chuck sets and they were not argued by Mayer or Keenan as they were good calls. One of them was a double on a bump set out of the net. I thought the ref called a lift and I thought it was a bad call. He asked me about it later and I told him it was definitely not a lift. He said he called a double and I told him I could not tell if that was the case or not. Certainly it was a tight call and a tough one for them.

Our next match on Friday pitted us against Fred Souza and Anthony Medel. It's kind of funny and cool for me to be playing against all these younger guys as I have either coached them, as in the case of Medel in Club Volleyball or coached against them as in the case of Mayer/Keenan when I was at UCSB as an assistant. Really neat to see these guys grow up as people as well as volleyball players. As long as they don't get too good that is. :) Fred and Anthony gave us all we could handle in the first game. Fred was unleashing some serious bombs and had at least 3 aces in the first game. They also grabbed a couple of cheap points on good serves resulting in bad passes by us. I felt pretty good siding out against them and I would say they ended up serving Phil probably 70 percent of the time. Little shocking when I am used to getting 90% of the serves. The first game ended up 22-20 with a bit of a mini comeback by us at the end of the game. The second game they only grabbed one ace by Anthony and we were able to defeat them 21-16.

The semis of the winner yet again put us up against Rosy and Gibb. First game was a battle as they took it 26-24. We had some good chances but a block by Phil that I was all over defensively went out by a foot and they then scooped me to put the game away. The second was not close as we came out strong and took it to the end 21-12. The third was a high level sideout match. They had some early point chances in the beginning of the game and did not convert and we ended up converting our chances by one more than them for 15-13 win.

In the crossover semis we played Ryan Mariano and Larry Witt who were playing outstanding volleyball. They continued that against us by taking the first game 26-24. Larry was siding out at about 11 feet as he was tooling Phil all over the place and going off the top of him. Ryan made some unbelievable plays at the end to win it for them. The last play he scooped Phil on an angle bomb and then put it away with a line shot. The second game was a battle again but Phil really picked up his game at the end of the game and we won 21-18. The third was the same but we sided out at a very high level and didn't give up much in the way of points. I think the score was 15-12. I was really impressed with this team. I expect they will consistantly be in the mix over the course of the year. They both bomb serves, pass and set well, and have very live arms.

The finals were a rematch of Miami. Jake and Rosy squeaked there way in and I do mean squeaked. After they lost to us in the semis they had to play Mark Williams and Casey Jennings. In the third game Casey and Mark were up on the bad side 14-11. Rosy sided out and then they proceeded to score 4 straight points for the win. Great comeback by them and I know it was very disappointing for Mark and Casey.

In the finals we played our best match of the season without question. It was weird, I didn't feel very good going into the finals but once it started it was easy. I will say that Rosy was jumping about 50 inches. He was hitting off the top of Phil with impunity in the first game. He was siding out so well that we started sending some serves Jake's way. He went into a short rut and we were able to establish a lead that we held on for the first game win. In the second game we jumped out to an early 5-2 lead. They came back at the break down 10-11 but we responded well and scored the next several points and continued on to a 21-16 victory. After the first half of game 1 Phil's blocking became nearly perfect. He was technically really good and in the zone so to speak. Made my job easy to dig and he was setting really well so I could see everything in front of me.

So all in all a good tourney. I was glad to get the W in Dallas since I was so close back in 1998 in Dax and my loss to Kent and Jose. Now we get a weekend off to rest and everyone can take stock of what's going on. I look forward to spending time with my wife for her birthday tomorrow and my son this next weekend on his birthday. Should be fun.