VARSITY ATHLETICS

November 07, 2007

Piper relishes her trip to UAA Championships in New York...

By S.K. Piper - Middle Blocker - Portage, MI

This past weekend I traveled with the volleyball team to Rochester, New York for the UAA Championship. We were scheduled to leave at 12:30 on Thursday, so naturally at noon I thought it was time to start packing. The walk down the elephant stairs to the bus was annoying, as it always is, because my volleyball bag would knock up against the same, already bruised spot on the side of my knee with each step. On the bright side, the combined weight from the duffel and my backpack full of homework to do on the ride was slowly massaging out the knot that has been in the exact spot the straps rest since two-a-days. I even named it, Wilbur, because he was so stubborn and I figured we’d be spending three months together so he might as well have a name (and a gender). So as I walked, silently praising the shuffle function on my iPod for having such good taste, I realized that this was the last time I’d be lugging my stuff to the bus this year. This epiphany happened with still 23 of the 82 steps to go, and I fully enjoyed those last 23 steps.

The bus ride there went like our rides normally go; rowdy and extremely entertaining the first half hour, then everyone was out cold. The five hour ride went by too quickly (everyone was lacking on sleep and was definitely in need of the nap) and we arrived at the gym for a quick practice to get used to the facility. Practice was productive, but the mood was light. This was it, our last weekend of volleyball. It wasn’t nervousness, it was more like impatience and excited anticipation for our matches the next day that was brewing in our stomachs. We showered and then went out to eat at this amazing Mexican place (which probably didn’t help the whole stomach situation).

Dinners out are always my favorite part of volleyball trips, because a). food, b). food, and c). food. There is always something to laugh about. Everyone walked out of the restaurant with sore abs, too much food in their stomach, and ready to crash. So walking into our hotel rooms with seven, yes, seven pillows on the bed was pretty much heaven. I’ll admit it, the travel teams I played on for volleyball in high school were cheap, and we’d stay five people in the room (two in each bed, and whoever lost rock paper scissors got the floor) at a Motel 6 where continental breakfast meant that they had a bowl of rotting fruit there for your enjoyment. Moral of that tangent story: I’m allowed to get excited about seven pillows. I sat there watching TV with my calculus book open on my lap, wishing that the Garfield poster was true, and you really could learn by osmosis.

We met for breakfast at 10:00 a.m. the next morning, which we were all very excited about because 10 o’clock is a good three hours later than our normal meeting time. After an amazing breakfast (I could go into it but then I’d ramble on for pages, lets just say it involved a waffle maker, strawberries, whipped cream, and an omelet station) we headed to the gym. This was it. Game time.

Our first day didn’t go as well as we had hoped. We held our own against Wash U, but had hoped to get our revenge against CMU for the five-game match we lost to them in the first UAA round robin. We still had two more matches the next day though, so after much needed showers at the gym, we headed to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Bazil. The first 10 minutes of dinner were spent arguing with my dad (my parents drove the 11 hours from Michigan to watch) over whether they had meant to spell basil and it was a typo, or if it should have been Brazil and they forgot the “r”. I won, with my rational that if it was the Brazil thing, then not only did they forget a letter, but they had the wrong genre of food too. Again, can’t go into the actual food because it was too amazing for words and I’d get carried away (easily done), but I will say that Italian food is a scam and people fall for it every time. You don’t need to order a meal, you’ll be full by the time it gets there anyways. You get breadsticks with your menu, which you of course down immediately because they’re free, and the waitress will bring another basket once the first is empty. Then because you DID make the mistake of ordering a meal, it comes with a huge salad (again, infinite refills) for the table and a bowl of soup. Lastly, the spinach and artichoke dip/bruschetta combo appetizer looked too good to pass up, so when the waitress does finally bring your food out, setting the huge plate of fancy pasta in front of you, she’s smiling not because she wants a bigger tip, but because she knows that there is absolutely no way you can even make a dent in the food she just set before you. Another customer tricked.

With my stomach again so full that walking, actually any type of movement was painful, we headed back to our hotel to sleep for the second time surrounded by more pillows than one person could possibly use at once. The tone at breakfast was fun, as always, but focused. Today was our day, we had beaten Rochester before and we planned to do it again. That would mean our final match would be to fight for the fifth place in the UAA. I’ve never seen our team fight so hard, we were down two games and fought back to win the third, and the fourth with a score of 37-35. We poured our hearts and souls into that match, so when we lost the fifth game 16-14 to Rochester we were devastated. We had to recover quickly though, because we played Chicago right after that, battling it out instead for seventh place. We won, thus having improved both our record and our UAA standing since last year. We showered, stayed to watch the finals between Emory and Wash U, and then piled on the bus for the ride back.

Everyone passed out almost immediately, being emotionally and physically drained from the day’s matches. I sat there for a while, staring out my window, watching us leave the city and zoning out to the Third Eye Blind the shuffle had picked this time. I was sad to see the season be over, but so happy about what we had accomplished this trip, the whole season really. The volleyball part may not have gone as well as planned, but overall we were successful. Good matches, good friends, and good food. What more could you ask for on a trip?

Posted by: Creg Jantz November 7, 2007 10:52 AM | Category: Volleyball

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) November 7, 2007 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback