San Franciso - Best of the Beach

This last tournament in San Francisco marked the end of the 2007 AVP season. It was great being in San Francisco where I lived just before making the decision to play Professional Beach Volleyball. Brooke and I started out extremely strong, winning our first 2 matches of the tournament, securing us in the Final Four.

The tournament consisted of the top 8 teams on the AVP tour with a double elimination format. We were the 7th seed coming in so our first round was against the 2nd seeds, Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh.

This was a really fun match. We always have a battle with this team. There was a great crowd, exciting rallies, and close games. We lost the first game 25-27. But we bounced back strong. We took game two 21-19. Game 3 was back and forth the whole way. We were down 13-11, but fought hard to stay in it. We fought off match point and came away with a 17-15 win. It was really exciting!

We then played Barbra Fontana and Dianne DeNecochea. We had lost to this team the previous 3 times we played them. We came out strong and dominated game one, winning 21-15. We had a slow start in game two and had to dig ourselves out of the hole. We were down by 6 or 7 points at the beginning, but really got the momentum toward the end of that game. We lost 18-21, but all the momentum was on our side. We came out firing in game three and won 15-9.

That was it for Friday. We were on a roll and really excited. We did not have to play until 5PM on Saturday night. We went to the site to watch all the matches that played into us. We saw EY/Nicole take down Wacholder/Turner in 2 games. Then they played Boss/Ross and won a hard fought match in 3 games. So we had to face EY/Nicole again!

The fans were crazy during this match. There were lots of hecklers. I had trouble siding out in this match and they let me know it. We lost the first game 21-11. EY was serving really tough which put us under a lot of pressure.

Game two, we came out and dominated. We served tough and got them into trouble. We got a big lead early in the game and had to fight them off. We won 21-16, but they had the momentum at the end. They took that straight into game three and won the match 15-8.

It is really hard to beat great teams two times in a row. Especially in the same tournament. They get really fired up and feel that they must get revenge, meanwhile you are doing everything you can to beat them again.

So our loss to EY/Nicole put us into the Bronze Medal match. We had to play Fontana/DeNecochea again! So we play 4 matches in a tournament, but only play against 2 teams. In a way, it was really frustrating. We came out really strong in this match. Brooke played really great defense. We battled back and forth, but could not hold steady throughout the match. We gave up stretches of points which killed us in the end. We lost 19-21, 17-21. I was really disappointed in my own play. My ball control was not very good. It was not the way I wanted to end the season. It would have been really great to end with a win.

I am going to choose to remember Friday as our end of the season. We beat two teams ranked above us. Besides May/Walsh, those two teams are the only ones that finished ahead of us... and we beat them on Friday! We finished 4th place out of the top 8 teams. I am proud of that.

There is so much this year that I am very proud of. Brooke and I went through so many ups and downs with each other this year. We stuck it out through thick and thin and ended up having a great season. In fact, it was the best season in both of our careers.

We are both sad that the year is over, but we are really excited to continue building our partnership for the years to come. We will take some time to rest, but then work really hard this off season to come back next year and pick up right where we left off.

We are considering playing in Hong Kong this November in an FIVB satellite event. I will keep you posted.

Jeremy and I are leaving this Thursday for Chicago. We are going to a Cubs game on Friday and then we are going to Notre Dame for the Michigan State football game. ND is struggling more so than ever, but we are still looking forward to seeing campus and visiting with friends. After that, we will visit with my family for a while before coming back to California.

Early October I will pick back up with my workouts and start building for next year. I won't touch a volleyball until November though. That will be the longest break from volleyball in my 6 year career! I think it will do me good.

Thanks for reading.

All my best,
Angie