Win in Chicago

Phil and I pushed through a tough weekend to win in the Windy City. Wasn't very aptly named this past weekend but I suppose that is probably a good thing for beach volleyball.

We played at Oak Street Beach for the first time ever. Normally we play at North Avenue Beach but there was something else that had reserved the beach so we moved to Oak Street. Always a little reserved when we go to a new spot, especially when the old spot is awesome. Oak Street Beach was very nice though. The sand was great and like always, the crowd was fantastic.

Phil and I played Scott Davenport and Jonathon Acosta in the first round of play. We smoked them in the first game 21-10. The second was a battle though as Davenport was siding out really well and I was not. We won 23-21 but only after they had a serve for game at 20-19. In our second match we played ALB and Carlucci. We were dragging a bit and needed something to fire us up. Fortunately the ref provided that by blowing a call and we fired up on him and took it out on ALB and Jeff. I think the scores were about 14 and 16.

In our third match we played Nygaard and Mayer. They played well in the first game and won 21-18. Mayer was scooping me and putting balls away and both he and Jeff were siding out well. In the second game Phil and I upped our service game as their was a good side to really bang your jump serve from. We scored more points by putting pressure on their passing game and won that won 21-14. In the third we traded a few sideouts before we went up a couple of points midgame. We took it strong to the end and won 15-11.

On Saturday we played Rosy/Gibb and had a battle. The game started off in a drizzle but by the end the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds in what would become a really nice day. Phil and I won the first game but were behind the entire second game. The ref made a very poor call which would have made the game 18 all but instead put Rosy and Jake up 19-17. They were able to win 21-19. In the third game the calls were reversed as Jake was called for a mystery double hit and then a ball that Phil "dug" but that was probably on the sand was not called and we won that point. Jake and Sean could not recover from that and we won 15-11 or so.

In our semifinal match we played Sean Scott and Nick Lucena and won in a 3 game marathon. Sean tends to play very slowly as he towels off a lot and generally slows the play of the game down. We won the first fairly handily but in the second Nick served really well. I know he had at least 4 aces in that game and also accounted for a couple of other points on very good serves. They won that game 21-16 I think and we had to go 3 games. In the third we played well and won 15-10. The game was long though as Sean took a medical timeout which is 5 minutes long. I think from start to finish the match lasted 90 minutes. This gave us only 25 minutes until the start of the final against Jake and Rosy.

In the finals we started off slow or more likely I should say I started off slow. The first point was an ace up the middle. The second was a shank and error by me. Another ace and then a scoop by Rosy on a line shot. Bamm we are down 4-0. The final score of the game was 21-13, we won. Phil went on a run from the service line serving bombs and stuffing balls. Basically everything went our way after we were down 6-10. In the second game we didn't start off as slow as in the first and continued to play strong. Phil was really very good in the finals. He served and blocked exceptionally well and when he plays that well, I just have to make sure I don't screw it up. The second game was 21-16 and we took home the Chicago title which Phil had not won yet and really wanted. Good weekend. Now off to Brooklyn, New York.