Darkside Update 1/23-24/99

Here is the summary of the Disney Classic Jan. 23-24. I drove up with Vicki and our visiting friend, Crystal on Friday night to check into the tournament and get our passes. Everyone else drove up Saturday morning. It didn't take long for the fun to begin. Kurt (and Kathy), following the Blue Glider and the Green Streak (Rick and Greg's cars) somehow found himself entering the Southbound lanes of the FL Turnpike, while everyone else was going North (to Orlando). The mistake was quickly corrected, but not before cries of "DORK" were heard from the caravan! Everyone arrived at Disney without incident.

The men's tournament was 2 pools of 5 with round robin matches being best of 3 to 15 points with the 3rd game rally scoring. Last year's tournament had 3 pools of 4 teams and pool play concluded the 1st day, with playoffs the 2nd day. This year, the men's tournament started 2:30PM Saturday and our 1st match was at 3:30PM. It was against Eglin and went our way easily: 15-7, 15-2. Eglin was one of several teams which should have played in the B/BB division, which they didn't have this year.

Our 2nd match was against Your Name Here and was a bit closer: 15-3, 15-12. Our last match of the day was against Sets. We won the 1st game by jumping out ahead with a flurry of blocking that caught them by surprise. We led 10-2 at one point, coasting in to a 15-5 win. They came back in game 2 and won 15-8. Our serving was horrible and we gave them side out after side out. Game 3 was rally. We lost the flip, had to serve and took the lead on our blocking. We seesawed up to the end and won 16-14. In this match, Set's setter Pat Ryan made no friends with the officiating crew. After getting called on an overlap, he picked up the ball and threw it, just missing the 2nd referee. That got him a red card. He continued to badger the 2nd ref the rest of the match. This win gave us 1st place in the pool and a bye into the semifinals. We worked the next match and were done for the day at 10:00PM.

In the other pool, things were going pretty much as expected. Shag Me Baby had little competition, as the only threat they faced - an unknown team from Austin, TX proved to be so weak, that they didn't finish in the top 3 and didn't make the playoffs. 2nd place in their pool was U. of Florida-Jacksonville and 3rd was Orlando Gold 18 (a junior team!).

Our 1st match Sunday morning was against Something About Stacy - clearly a B team. With Kurt resting and Ahren, Shane and Rob MIA (overslept at Shane's - must have been on Calgary time) we had to make some drastic modifications. Our line up was Raik and I as opposite and setter, Wade opposite Jason and Rick and Greg passing. Raik and I shared duty as middle blockers when Wade was at the net and provided some interesting moments. We were done by the time the 3 missing wise men made their appearance. We had won both games.

In the quarterfinals, Your Name Here (3rd place in our pool) beat U. of Florida 2-0, while Sets beat Orlando Gold 18-1 2-0. In the 1st semifinal, we played Your Name Here and won the 1st game easily. They came back in the 2nd with the help of our sporadic passing and poor serving and forced a 3rd rally scoring game. We lost the flip and had to serve. With improved serving and solid blocking we jumped to a comfortable lead and won pulling away 15-7.

The other semifinal was a 3 game war between Sets and Shag Me Baby. Sets won the 1st while SMB came back and won the 2nd. In the 3rd rally game Shag Me Baby shut down the Sets' big guns and won 15-8 on the strength of their blocking. The finals were set. Against Shag Me Baby, we came out in pink warm up shirts (c/o Captain Canada). Not our finest look, but so what. In game 1, we started strong with our blocking and defense scoring points quickly. We jumped out in front and grew our lead until we won. SMB came back as our passing, serving and blocking (our whole game in general) took a holiday once again. Game 2 to SMB. We lost the flip for choice in the 3rd rally game (AGAIN!) and had to serve. After scoring the 1st few points, we went cold and couldn't side out. Trailing 7-2 we looked done - NOT. We came back with blocking and D to trail at the switch 8-7 and then we seesawed to 12 when SMB took the lead 13-12, then 14-12.

With backs against the wall, we sided out to 13-14 on a desperation 1-hand set to Kurt for a 1-ball crush. Wade went in to jump serve (as he had been doing all day) and pounded one down the line, which they shanked for 14-14. They called a time out and then Wade put another jump serve on them, we blocked a ball for 15-14 and their big hitter Jason put the 1-on-1 spike attempt into the tape for match point. New Disney Classic Champs: Darkside. A reversal of the match we dropped to SMB at Eckerd in the finals in the fellowship season.

T.K.A.- The Thunderous Kaboom Award - There were many Kabooms. My award, I give it to Kurt for a 1-ball off of a 1 handed set vs. Sets in pool play. He got a little extra on this one and it DID bounce oh so nice!

The DORKSIDE - although several guys were hit by stray spikes, none were really dorkworthy. Some on the serves we served up could have qualified for the DORKSIDE, but no signals came out. Kurt's "mis-direction" on the turnpike was offered up as was Wade grabbing Rick's bag after Saturday's play and taking it with him (this left Rick with no clean clothes for the next day), but neither are a game error. So, NO DORKSIDE this tourney. Better luck next time.