Dan's Guatemala Blog #4: Serve Me and Die!
We went to bed last night with my cell phone alarm set and no wake-up call. Kevin (aka Goose) freaked out at about 6:15am (waking me up) and was like, DUDE! What time is it? That made me freak a little because I didn’t know. Then I looked at my phone. We still had 30 minutes to sleep. Get a wake-up call if you don’t want your partner to give you a panic attack.
We played Guatemala’s #1 team early in the morning. Our hitting lines improved, but I still wasn’t bouncing balls as high as wanted to. We were up by like 5 points with game point and Goose kept hitting the tape or the middle of the net because he was jones-ing for a big game-winning blast. After we won that game we won the next game by a lot. They served Goose every single time.
Cuba’s team was next. They’re both 6’5” with some serious ball control. Yikes. They won the warmup and they got first place in the match. We had them on the ropes but lost 22-20 and then we turned stupid and lost the next game. I got served once. I got aced down my line. The dude ripped it. I don’t know why Goose is getting every serve. They’re not even LOOKING at me when they serve. California teams generally serve each of us equally.
In the evening we played Puerto Rico, winner makes it to the Semi-Finals. It started getting dark and I had to keep blinking really hard to see straight. Rafu (of PR) was BLASTING serves at Goose all match but our sideout game was pretty strong. The problem was that we got hardly any digs. After losing 21-19, we decided to go for broke and get ZERO digs in game 2. Goodness. Goose and I are the worst blockers in the world, but we’re pretty good with the whole digging thing, especially Goose. I had at least 4 spikes dork off my arms and out of bounds. AGH! We lost. But we like Rafu and Orlando (they laugh at my jokes and watched the Danny Kinda videos with no sound and STILL liked them!) so good luck to Puerto Rico!
Have you ever had a Guatemalan cheeseburger? They’re “interesting”. This photo is Kevin and me demonstrating our “this is interesting” faces. Also receiving that face were the “beef” tacos with stemmy onions, the hamburgers, the “Chiky” chocolate thingies, and the Avril Lavigne swear-word in one of her songs that was blasting during warmups.
We’re out of the tournament after two straight losses. On a really good day we could have won but they were better teams. Mexico is the other really strong team in the event. They’ve got a guy who looks like a thicker version of KG’s own Billy Allen. I’m sitting in front of the air conditioner in the hotel room and I’m freezing. TTYL.
By AJ | 21 April 08 |
