Gstaad

Gstaad was good for Phil and I as we won our second cow bell. Didn't start out that well though.

In Pool Play on the Thursday we were once again in Jake and Rosy's pool for the umpteenth time. We lost to them in 3 games. Killed them in the first, lost a very tight second game in overtime and then they smoked us in the third. Rosy was scooping balls and both guys were siding out like champs. In our second match that day we played a young Polish team. We didn't play great but won in 2 games. On Friday we played the Czech team and won in 3 games to take 2nd in our pool. No bye to 9th so we had to play our first single elimination round game Friday afternoon. We had a good draw playing the Spanish qualifier team of Mesa/Lario. It was a tight game but we prevailed 18 and 19.

On Saturday morning we played the Kiwis who had won their pool. Pretty good draw there too as they are a good team but had played in the qualifier. We won in two games. We then again had Jake and Rosy as they had won our pool to receive a bye and then beat Pedro and Harley in their first elimination game. We were supposed to play at 6pm but a crazy mountain rain/hail storm came in at 4pm for about 2 hours. Pretty cool to watch as the hail was the biggest I have ever seen. Ended up clearing up around 6pm and we played at 7pm. First game was back and forth and we ended up winning by a couple of points. Second game they came out strong and took a 4 point lead or so and never relinquished it to win going away. The third game was back and forth the whole time. They scored a late point and were up 14-12. I sided out to make it 13. Served Rosy and Jake threw the set to tie up the game at 14's. No complaints as it was definetely a bad set. Rosy sided out the next ball as did I. Phil served Jake and stuffed him for us to go up 16-15. Jake sided out the next ball but I did as well. Served Jake again and Rosy chucked the set for game. Wasn't quite as bad as Jake's set but was bad according to how the ref had called the game. I had a chuck set in the 1st game. I told the ref it sucked to end the game on a chuck set. He agreed but what could he do. He kept the standard the same the whole game regardless of score.
On Sunday we played the top Polish team in the semis. We played very well and beat them pretty easily. In the finals we exacted a little bit of revenge from the Germans. David and Eric started off pretty bad having lost their first two matches in pool play but then had fired it up and made it all the way to the finals. Phil and I were remembering Norway as we played them and we played very well to beat them 18 and 15. Very satisfactory ending to the trip.