From Ocean City, Maryland AVP - on to World Championships

I am sitting in the Frankfurt Airport Lufthansa Business Lounge waiting for my connecting flight to Stavanger so I thought I would take this opportunity to write about Ocean City and the journey to get here, in Frankfurt.

Ocean City... we made progress. We kicked the curse of our 7th place finishes on the AVP tour. We finished 5th place. Still not where we want to be, but progress. We played pretty well at times and then at other times, we forgot which way was up and which way was down. It happens. It is all about growing as a team and making progress, which I feel we really did.

We flew into Washington Dulles on Wednesday before the event started. Jeremy, my husband, arrived just before us so he picked up the rental car and then came back to get us. It is a 3 hour drive to OC, so instead of fighting traffic at rush hour, we decided to take a detour through DC and drive around Jeremy's old stomping grounds. We drove through his old neighborhood, by his school (St. Albans's), and then ate at me and Tyra's favorite place, Whole Foods. By the time we finished eating, traffic had cleared and we hit the road.

Once we arrived, we crashed right away and slept in on Thursday. We woke up to pouring rain and miserable weather. Once we got up, we walked down to the event site and watched a bit of the qualifier, visited the medical tent for some chiropractic treatment, then practiced a little later in the day.

We woke up early on Friday to beautiful weather. Our first round match was scheduled for 11 AM against Hall/Kuk. We were a bit shaky, but pulled things together and won handily, 21-16, 21-16. Our next match was against Stonebarger/Koester who pulled out an upset over the 11th seeds, Mason/More. We came out strong in the first and won big, 21-12. We lost a bit of our momentum, maybe had a lack in concentration after the first set and lost the second set 19-21. Then we decided to get down to business and take control of the third. We won 15-10. That was it for Friday.

Saturday morning we faced Hanson/Rutledge to get to 5th place. We started out strong with good ball control and a good game plan and won the first set 21-16. We were down big early in the second, but came rallying back to take the 18-17 side switch. Rutledge had a few key blocks which shifted the advantage back to them. They took the second set 21-19. We fell apart in the third set. We lost our ball control and made setting and hitting errors which absolutely killed us. We lost 10-15. Time to regroup....

After the loss, an enormous storm system blew in. We watched as teams played in the torrential downpour that ensued. The rain slowed down just in time for our warm up for our next match against the Lindquists. We actually started the match, took a side turn down 3-4 when the beach officials came in to declare that the entire beach was officially closed until further notice. Everyone had to evacuate the beach. There was quite a bit of thunder and lightning and more rain to come, so we were put on a 2 hour delay. Tyra and I went to the nearest hotel and sat in the lobby to wait it out. Once it cleared, we went back to the beach and had to warm up all over again.

We had another all-out battle with the Lindquists. They play crafty, scrappy volleyball so you must stay on your toes. They won the first set 21-19. We stayed patient, made some crucial plays, and won the second set 21-18. The third was a bit back and forth. A controversial referee call fired us up and put our backs against the wall. We pulled together as a team and fought our way out, winning 15-11. A big sigh of relief.

Next we faced Minello/Lima whom we lost to in Atlanta. We were fired up for this rematch. Wind was a factor and we used it to our advantage. We served aggressively, we hit aggressively, and we played good defense. (All important things to win!) We won in two sets, 21-17, 21-13. That win broke us of our 7th place curse. We were now in 5th place and moving on.

After we finished the match, we were getting treatment in the medical tent when another storm blew in. It was another torrential downpour that lasted about 15 minutes. Once it blew by us, an enormous rainbow formed over the ocean. It was beautiful.

The next morning, we faced Dodd/DeNeccochea in some seriously windy conditions. We did a great job of controlling the ball on our side of the net in the first set. We got a few aces and we sided out very well. We had a very big lead towards the end of the game, but Di served more than a few "tricklers" over the net that were untouchable. That pulled them in closer until we won 21-18.

We are not really sure where our ball control went after that first set, but it left us. We struggled through the next two games and ended up getting creamed. It was a big bummer, but in the grand scheme of the tournament, we made progress.

After the match, we got more treatment before hitting the road again back to the airport. Traffic was very heavy, so it took a bit longer than the 3 hours we anticipated. We still had plenty of time to stop by a Whole Foods and get our last kombuchas and salads before heading to Europe for 5 weeks.

So now for the second part of the story.... We boarded our flight from Dulles to Frankfurt, actually took off in the air and were flying about 20 minutes when the captain came on and said that one of the generators was not working so we would have to dump fuel and turn back. We would have an extra heavy load since we just took off so it would be a very heavy, potentially dangerous landing. For precautionary reasons, they called in the emergency team at the airport. We flew around dumping fuel (which made me cringe at the thought of such waste) for about 15 minutes. We had to dump tons and tons of jet fuel to get the plane to a safe weight for landing. Then we made our descent and landed the plane, without incident back at Dulles. The runways were cleared except for the dozens and dozens of emergency vehicles all waiting for us. It was an eerie sight to see all the flashing emergency lights lining the runway as we landed. Thankfully, we were safe on the ground.

We had to switch to another aircraft at a different gate, so we gathered our belongings and waited at the next gate. The whole ordeal took just under 4 hours, so we missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt to Stavanger, Norway. No big deal...we were booked on a later flight leaving in the afternoon, which is why we were sitting in the lounge when I started writing this. I am finishing it while we are actually flying.

So far our adventure is off to an exciting start! Once we arrive in Stavanger, we will have 2 full days to acclimate and prepare for our competition. Because it is the World Championships which consists of the top 48 men's and women's teams in the world, the event lasts 10 days. There are only 3 courts for competition, which means we will play one match every other day. We start off with 12 pools of 4 teams and from there, the top 2 will advance plus the best 8 of the remaining 3rd place finishers in pool to complete a 32 team single elimination tournament.

We begin play on Thursday. The forecast is for high 60s and sunshine! I can't wait!

I am bummed that we will miss the Coney Island AVP event, but we plan to do our best representing the USA here in Norway.

You can follow our results at http://www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/index.asp?sm=12
(Sorry! Can't figure out how to hyperlink this with my new computer!)

Thanks for reading!

Angie Akers