Weekend in Louisville

Long weekend in Louisville for this guy. Got in around midnight Friday with Phil. Then didn't play until 9:30pm on Saturday night. If I had known that I think I would have flown in early Saturday. AVP needs to start getting a schedule of games out earlier. We filled the time by going to see Iron Man. Great movie and I recommend you go see it.

We finally hit the sand later that night. Warmed up but it seemed like I just could not warm up the body. My joints hurt everywhere. Especially my knees, hips and back. We played ALB and Carlucci and battled in the first game. We won 26-24 or something like that. We were up the whole game but they made a nice run towards the end to tie it up. They had a swing for game but Phil dug it and then put it away. We had like 5 swings for game and hit 3 of them out. We pulled it out at the end. The second game we eliminated our errors and won 21-15.

I was so stiff and was trying to figure out why I was so stiff. It was a little chilly but not super cold. Maybe mid to high 50's. As I was walking back to the hotel I started to get the chills and realized I was stiff not because I am getting old, although that is true too, but because I was getting the flu. By the time I got back to the hotel I had the shakes. I showered and took some advil to bring down my temp. which had started to go up as I got the chills. Woke up the next morning and had a nice fever and the aches.

We played at 11am vs. Dax and Billy. I had taken some more advil and felt okay. I started off slow and they won the first game pretty handily. Dax was digging me a lot and I made a couple of errors too. I think we lost 21-16. In the second and third game I picked it up and eliminated my errors. Something I had noticed over the last several tourneys was that I was making a lot of unforced errors and I needed to cut back on those. I did that this tourney and we needed it. The second game we won 21-18 or so and the third we won 15-12. Phil had some big plays and I sided out well enough for us to win.

I went home after that game and basically slept in bed all day. We didn't play until 8:30 that night which gave me time to rest. I continued to pop advil, tylenol, ect.. to keep the fever down. We played Anthony and Fred that night and played well. I started off slow as I did in every match but we picked it up and won in 2 games.

Really didn't eat this weekend at all. Everything looked terrible to me and my stomach ached. I drank a lot of liquid trying to flush everything out. On Monday we played in the crossover semis at 11am. We beat Sean and Nick in 2 games. The first was a battle and the second we beat them 21-12. I again started slow but then again, I was taking 10 minute warm-ups.

In the finals we played Brad and John and they played very well. I checked out the stats and they were the top 2 sideout percentage guys for the whole tourney. Brad led in aces and was top 5 in blocks and John was 6th in digs. Pretty good. I started off slow again but we were able to bring it back to a close distance. Towards the end of the game we went up a couple of points but then Brad went back and got 2 untouched aces and we were down again. We were able to pull out the first game in overtime which was huge. In the second game we were up a couple of points and then gave up 5 in a row or so. Phil chucked a couple of balls, I got stuffed a couple of times and hit one out and bam your down a point or two. We ended up losing 21-16. In the third they were pretty much up most of the time. At 12-10 us down I sided out and went back to the service line. We were not scoring via blocks and digs so I decided to bomb my jump serve. I got an ace to tie it up at 12 all and then hit the next one out. It kind of gave us some momentum though. I got the next serve and sided out with a deep angle hit to tie it at 13 all. Then Phil stuffed John for 14-13 and then he served a net ball that caught Brad off balance and he passed it over the net. It surprised Phil who was running in but he was able to pop it up and I set him for the kill and the match. In truth, I would say they outplayed us. We were good enough or lucky enough to win in the end though and I guess that is what counts.