VARSITY ATHLETICS

October 09, 2008

First UAA Road Trip Gives Team Time To Bond...

By Sophomore Outside Hitter Beth Karpinski (Avon Lake, OH)

This past weekend the volleyball team traveled to Pittsburgh for the first UAA round robin. Before leaving on Friday night, the team met up for dinner and some “bonding time” in the Village. This was a bit of a problem considering I had four bags of volleyball clothes and schoolwork to carry from Southside and I started packing with two of my roommates / teammates an hour before we were supposed to eat. Luckily, my roommates and I were able to catch a ride over with another one of our teammates and didn’t miss out on all the food.

After some wheat spaghetti followed by lots and lots of dessert, it was time for a few games of Catchphrase, which was maybe one of the funniest things I’ve done in a while. Then it was time to load everyone onto the bus and head out to Pittsburgh. We watched Made of Honor (always a chick-flick on the bus) on the way there and soon after it finished we were checking in to the hotel. After looking for the hotel’s nonexistent hot tub, it was time for some rest so we would all be ready for the start of UAA play.

We met up in the lobby at 8:00 AM to leave for the UAA breakfast, where all the teams in the conference mix up to interact and talk about volleyball, school, and whatever else comes to mind. Usually you sit with other players but I was lucky enough to sit with four other players and four coaches…talk about watching what you say! Once breakfast was finished, the team had a few hours before lunch and getting ready to play, which meant only one thing: it was time to go shopping. Most of us went to the Southside Works, which I believe was another excellent time for team bonding. We returned in plenty of time for lunch and then it was time to play.

We played Carnegie Mellon in our first match, which did not go exactly as we had hoped. We lost the match in three sets but left the gym looking ahead to the next day of competition. We headed to dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse, where there was a man making balloon animals (I got a turtle). He gave us each a balloon to try to blow up, but only one person could get it; the rest of us failed miserably and ended up light headed. We all left dinner, exhausted from both volleyball and attempting to blow up balloons, and headed back to the hotel. It was the 250th anniversary of the city of Pittsburgh so there was a huge firework show that night, which I heard was pretty cool. I was not part of the group that went, since I fell asleep as soon as I got back to my room.

The next morning we met for breakfast and headed out to the gym ready for our two matches. We started the day against Washington University, the defending national champions, and played very well despite losing the match. Immediately after, we faced Rochester and beat them 3-1, which provided a good close to the weekend. After we all showered, we headed to CMU’s Schatz Dining Hall for brunch. Let me just say I have a new appreciation for Fribley [Case Dinning Hall]. The weekend was finally over and we all piled back on the bus, worn out from such an eventful weekend. I was awake long enough to see the opening credits of Finding Nemo and when I woke up I was back at Veale, getting ready to drag all my luggage back to the top of the hill.

Overall, the weekend was a great experience. We competed against some very good teams, came away with our first UAA win of the season, and spent a lot of time getting to know each other better. We have the second round-robin in two weeks and will be working hard in practice to improve and come away with a few more wins.

Posted by: Creg Jantz October 9, 2008 10:00 AM | Category: Volleyball

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) October 9, 2008 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback