September 9, 2010- Team Sm'Aesch traveled to Köniz, Switzerland to participate in a preseason tournament. Its where all the teams in the Swiss National League A clash to fight for preseason bragging rights, scout other teams and basically meet and greet old teammates, future friends and create future rivalries. All this happened. True Story. But in the end only one team could be let standing. Everyone else was sent home, sometimes limping on crutches with traces of kinesiotape still left on their knees, ready to rearrange strategies and work harder to prepare for a season of the same type of battles.
Team Sm'Aesch walked into the gym that Saturday with a pretty difficult draw. None of which mattered. Whether we drew the USA national team or some high school club team we still had to come to play. That is the nature of the game. But in my opinion it was tough, but manageable. The way the tourny was set up is there were three three team pools and the winner from last year, Team Zurich Volero had a bye to the next round. Where you place in your pool ofcourse deteremined your fate for the playoffs. We happened to be place in Pool B with Frances Montanges, a very physical American-style playing team (they have 7 Americans) and Sacres Neuchâtel, a team we were defeated by in 4 games one week earlier. So we definitely had to come to play.
At lunch we heard about the outcome of the match before us. VFM had defeated Neuchatel 3-2 in what sounded like a pretty "in your face", smack-talking way. So I was pumped to face the American smack talkers. lol The match started off very badly for us. There was no connection whatsoever between anyone one the floor. We were hitting one-on-one situations straight into single blocks or the net or out of bounds. It was a mess. I really was not involved in the match whatsoever. It was one of those days where I really was not going to get many balls so I had to do my job of trying to pull the block and block to help our defense. But still we went down 0-2. But in a mental game-changing moment due to an ill-advised comment through the net by one of their players, I was fired up and there was no way I was gonna allow us to go down without a fight. You know middle is a difficult position and sometimes you are just not going to be in the offense and its really outta your hands. So you have to generate energy from another place, whether is making an amazing coverage play, or serving aces or being extra vocal on the court and firing another teammate up. For me its blocking. So I went to work.
Game 3 we came out a little bit more on fire and after really concentrating on blocking I totally changed my energy and focus in this game. "I may not get set much, but I can control my blocking." And with that attitude I started touching more balls and then blocking more balls and making the other hitters have to change up their shots. It fired me up, and I realize when I get fired up my teammates get fired up. We totally turned it around and took game 3 pretty decisively. Guess what? I started to get more balls and the offense for the middles opened up. Its amazing what mentality does in athletics. Game four went on pretty much the same way. We had to have it to stay in the match. As the other team tired and got frustrated, we got stronger and played more like a unit. We played up to the potential our coach believe we could play at. It was pretty awesome. VFM fought back and never really gave in. Both teams were really going at each other and after we took game 4 it all came down to Game 5.
Which was only 15 points, so not much to tell there... We WON! And on a match point block by yours truly.
I hope there is no hard feelings between the middle and I that had a mini confrontation. Its always good to have be friendly with other Americans playing in the league. Were both miles and miles away from home in a distant country and we both dont speak the language. Its nice to cross under the net and say, "hey whats up?" in English. Its a since of comradery.
Match 2 would also be a challenge. If not physical, mentally we had to come to this match and just play. Push through hard time, defend and contain and then ATTACK. Which we did not. You know sometimes in athletics there are teams or individuals you just dont match up good against. Neutchatel is one of those teams. In college it was Florida. In highschool it was Ben Davis. I dont know maybe its just a mental block. Neutchatel has a very solid team I think. They have two US National team members, setter Bryn Kehoe and outside hitter Airial Salvo. They also have a Swiss National team middle in Diiva Boketsu.
Game one started off pretty good. We connected. Everyone. Things came seemingly easy. Again the middle were not getting many balls, but that was because the other team pretty much had us on lock down. Which is okay because our pin players were getting many 1 on 1 opportunities and turning them into points. We took game 1 pretty easily. And that was the last time we felt that way in this match.
Game two Team Neuchatel came out on fire and Sm'Aesch looked like a completely different team. We had the same jerseys on. It was the same people on the court in the same positions, yet it was a different team. It was unreal. As time went on in the match, thing after thing started to unravel. Passing broke down which meant no middle activity at all. Missed serves led to long runs of points for them. Communication broke down and we all individually played the rest of that match disguised as a team. I couldnt defend their setter attack for the life of me. Frustrating. We were defeated 3-1. But with wins come loses. You can be up at one point and down the next. Thats the nature of this beast we call athletics and competition. The trick is to stay consist but try and outdo what you have just done. Because if you linger in your victory too long you are bound to be defeated by someone who is constantly upping their level of play. Thats what happened in this match. We stayed even thinking it would be good enough, while Neuchatel raised their level of play. Lession learned... I hope.
With that loss in 4 we finished a disappointing 3rd in our pool. There was a three way tie. We beat VFM who beat Neuchatel who beat us, but because we lost in 4 we got 3rd. That really sucked because the best we could finish in the tourny was 8th. We had no one to blame but ourselves. The next day we picked our spirits off the floor and defeated VBC Cheseaux and Biel to capture 8th place. What a bummer, but now we know what it takes to compete and so hopefully we will not have to suffer this consequence again this season. No not the consequence of losing. Unfortunately that happens. The lesson I am talking about is not playing up to your potential. And after its said and done that truly sucks.
Congrats to Neuchatel on making it to the finals and coming within a breathe of defeating the Volero. It was a great match.
All the photos can be viewed and purchased at http://www.photomaster.ch/ Awesome photography. Thanks!
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