Bowling Green State University Athletics
Van De Walle Blog - July 14
July 15, 2007 | Volleyball
July 15, 2007
CHINA -
July 14
Today starts the tournament. We got up early since we had the
first match against Australia. Out the door and on the bus at 8am. We
arrived at the gym to the usual 3-5 men smoking in the gym hallway. We
hustled through the cloud of smoke and made our way to the gym. We had
a good warm up and everyone felt ready to go. The match went our way
25-9, 25-3, 25-9.
Australia is a young program. I think they have been together just a few months. We have a really good relationship with them. We bonded early since we both speak English. We left the gym right after the match to eat at the hotel...since the players are not fans of the local food served at the sports school. Tracy and I asked our translator to take us back to the Temple area to shop a little bit more since we had some time. It was even more crowded this time because it was a Saturday. But it was fun!
Our next match was against Japan and again Team USA came out on top. We beat them 3-0, 25-20, 25-20, and 26-24. Again we were definitely the better team. We came from behind in the last two sets which wasn't what we thought would happen. Our passing broke down a bit, but offensively we were too much for them. Our serving kept them out of system. So we're 2-0 and will play Mongolia in the morning at 10am. When we beat them we'll be in the Championship match against China. That's exactly where we wanted to be.
Tonight we had another coaching clinic with our Head Coach Mike and China's head coach showing some drills. I was mainly interested in armswing since the Chinese all have the same great attacking skills.It was good to listen to the Chinese coach talk since most everything he talked about was what we already do.It's really great to sit in the gym with all these different coaches of different countries and talk about sitting volleyball. Who would have ever thought I'd be here with Iran, China, Australia, Mongolia, Japan, Malaysia and the Netherlands?
We're back at the hotel now and getting ready for our last day of the tournament. I know we'll do well and be in the finals. We want to play China again. Good night!
