The 2/5/00 Leesburg Tournament Recap

The 1st tournament of February was at Lake-Sumter Community College in Leesburg, FL. Originally scheduled to be a 2 pool, 8-team tournament, it became a 7-team single pool modified round robin when Sets dropped out at the last minute. As we were driving up at some ungodly hour in the morning, the temperature kept dropping. By the time we got to Leesburg, it was 43 degrees. The cold front had moved in. We came up in 2 vehicles with 6 players total. With Rick's Blue Glider traded in already, we no longer have the 7-passenger vehicle we had grown accustomed to. As we got to the gym, we discovered the temperature in the gym wasn't any warmer than the temperature outside. After some effort by the maintenance staff, they at least got the circulation fans to stop blowing the cold air around.

We were scheduled to play the 3rd match and most teams were still playing with sweatpants and long sleeve t-shirts. We modified our uniforms as best we could and began to warm up. Darkside had some personnel changes, as several team members had decided to form a "U. of Florida Alumni" team. Necomer Matt Heath played his 1st regular season tournament as a Darksider and made a good impression. Our squad for this tournament was Rick and Raik passing, Kurt as one middle and Matt and Wade alternated as the other middle and offsetter with me setting. We had a relatively easy 1st match against Beefcake winning 2-0. We came out fairly strong against Ramshackle in our next match, but the passing and everything else everything else fell apart. we lost the lead and couldn't catch up in the 1st set. We regained most of our composure in the 2nd set and won that one with some slightly improved play.

Sitting at 3-1 we played Team Caribe and struggled early, but came out on top in the 1st set and then maintained our level winning the 2nd set as well. Our final match was against Diet 69 and by this time we had it figured out and were almost warm enough to play in just our uniforms. We were able to put together 2 good sets made quick work of Diet 69 and secure a 7-1 record, good enough for 1st place in pool and a 1st round bye.

Our good play continued though the semis against No Protein. Although the play was a little sloppy at times, the end result proved favorable as we were able to ease through the best-of-three match with a quick 2-0 victory. The finals proved un-dramatic as we pulled through with solid blocking and some very effective serving. Wade and Matt got their jump serves going and the rest of us provided some tactical short and deep serving to keep Double Bogey's serve receive offence bottled up. The only real downside to our play the sporadic passing, which was the cause of most of the other team's points. It stabilized enough to keep us from ever trailing, but we could have won easier with a little more consistency. There could be worse complaints!

The DORKSIDE (a.k.a. the DORK AWARD)

With some of the passes off of serve receive as strong contenders, not any specific one stood out so much worse from the others (there were so many horrid ones!) to earn award honors. Also, getting aced doesn't really count as a Dorkside, because you actually have to make a play at a ball. There were a few "ole'" moves by several middle-back row players getting narrowly out of the way of an out ball's path, but in each case no contact was made, so no award there. Raik had an impressive 1-on-1 waffle hit which sailed a long way across the gym before touching down, but it was nothing we haven't seen before, so no award there. Nothing captured the true Dorkside moment this past weekend, so NO AWARD this week - AGAIN! Next week in Gainesville will provide many opportunities, I'm sure.

LAKE-SUMTER C.C., LEESBURG
USAV TOURNAMENT - 2/5/00

MEN'S DIVISION GAMES
WON    LOST		 PLACE
1. RAMSHACKLE 5 3 3rd
2. NO PROTEIN 5 3 4th
3. BEEFCAKE 1 7 7th
4. TEAM CARIBE 2 6 5th
5. DIET 69 2 6 6th
6. DARKSIDE 7 1 1st
7. DOUBLE BOGEY 6 2 2nd
Net #1 REF Game 1 Game 2 Net #2 REF Game 1 Game 2 SIT
1 vs. 2 3 22-25 25-20 4 vs. 5 6 25-27 25-22 7
1 vs. 3 2 25-14 25-17 4 vs. 7 5 23-25 22-25 6
3 vs. 6 1 16-25 16-25 5 vs. 7 4 18-25 21-25 2
1 vs. 6 3 25-21 21-25 2 vs. 5 7 21-25 26-24 4
1 vs. 4 6 25-15 25-27 2 vs. 7 5 25-18 17-25 3
4 vs. 6 1 22-25 23-25 3 vs. 7 2 10-25 23-25 5
5 vs. 6 4 14-25 20-25 2 vs. 3 7 25-18 25-16 7

PLAYOFFS



Kurt Bogad, Matt Heath, Wade Galt, Rick Taylor, Dan Zawadowycz, Raik Helmes