My Take on Huntington Beach

First off, I want to say thank you to all those people who have made comments on this blog. Dave from SD, Arsenal, and everyone else, I appreciate the feedback and it helps me as well. Also, to the guy who said I missed on the Stein and Lambo call, I beg to differ. When you made the call you were almost right, but in the end, I think I called it right. Sorry, have to give myself a little pat on the back for that one.

As for Huntington: Phil and I were pretty solid until the money was literally on the line. Then we crumbled like Feta. Hopefully we can bounce back in Glendale, AZ. Always nice in the beginning of the year as you have a lot of tourneys to bounce back on if you do poorly.

Stein and Lambo were awful that first game. I kept peeking to see what was up. The other guys were really lucky as well. In the third game alone they had at least 3 if not 4 dribble over the tape on either serves or hits. It wasn't Stein and Lambo's day. As often happens though, you get on a role and everything goes back to hunky dorry. That is what they did. They started playing better and better as the tourney rolled on and they took it all the way to the victory stand. Impressive to say the least.

Jake and Rosy were again very good and made it to the finals. I think physically they just overpower most of the teams out there. Any team can of course get on a run, but I think they more than anyone else, can just flat out overpower teams. From what I hear, they too struggled when the big money was on the line in the finals. Truth be told, I didn't watch a lot of it as I was still stinging from our loss to them.

Sean and Matt again struggled with a 25th. I saw there first loss against my former setter at UCSB, Dane Jensen and his partner. Great win for the quali guys and really bad loss for Sean and Matt. Many more finishes like that and I don't see them staying together regardless of their desire to play on the Olympic stage. It was really windy in Huntington and I think that may have had something to do with the losses. I will say that they did not play very well against Dane Jensen and Dane and partner played extremely well. I still think this team will be good, but they are going to take some lumps. So far, one good tourney and 2 bad tourneys for them. If this trend continues, they should do well in AZ.

Mark and Casey took a 9th. Semi-upset vs. Nick and Billy and then a tough loss to Karch/Wong. From all accounts, the Karch game was a great game to watch as both Casey and Karch were digging machines. Look for Casey and Mark to continue to climb the rankings and seed ladder.

Dax and Jeff took a 9th. Upset by Wong/Stolfus in 3 tight games. Then upset by Medel and Fred. Didn't see the games but you gotta win the tight games on this tour. Medel and Fred could very easily have served them off the court too.

Ring and Olsen had an off week. Upset in the first round and then victims of the Stein and Mike train through the losers. Took a 13th I think.

Medel and Fred had a good tourney outside of our game vs. them. I think they gamed it through with a 5th place finish. Took down Dax/Jeff and won the games they should have.

Not so good for Ryan and Larry. Leave it at that and expect them to better next week.

Great tourney by Nick and Billy. Nick is playing great volleyball. Serving the snot out of the ball and quick as a cat on defense. Billy is coming along and will only get better. If one of the top teams doesn't break up and try and break this team up, they will be really solid by the end of the year.

Another solid outing by Karch and Wong. Karch won't be playing in AZ but I think he will be announcing. Karch was a digging machine again and Wong played solid from what I saw.

Lastly, Hyden and Keenan were very good and benefitted from first round losses of Stein/Mike and Ring/Olsen. Nonetheless, they defeated Jake and Rosy in the winners semifinals. Great tourney by them and congrats to them. Especially John. He has had a rough year so far and I expect he will continue his solid play. Keenan is another big guy with lots of potential who continues to work on filling that potential up.