Blog Entries
I just wanted to drop you a note to give you a review of my summer. Wow what a difference a year makes. Thanks to Mother Nature and a great trainer I have grown measurably in height and strength. I had a great season in which I won six professional tournaments and bettered my seed in every tournament that I played in with my partner Pete Goers. I had a great cheering section at a lot of my events and I thank all of you who personally attended and cheered me on. Because of all of you and your financial support I was able to travel to and participate in 16 events across the Country. I increased my ranking nationally from 182nd to 104th, and my rank on the Midwest Professional Volleyball Association Tour from 5 th to 1 st. There are many exciting things in the works for the 2009 season and I hope to participate in 20-24 events nationally and possibly 1-2 internationally. I hope that all of you will keep me in mind when preparing your 2009 budgets and I also hope that those of you who’s businesses supported me fell that your investment was worthwhile. I can’t thank you enough for your support as this year I came one step closer to obtaining my goals in beach volleyball.
California/Dallas/Miami
April 30, 2008Wow what a three week stretch as I finally get back home for a few days. I left on March 31st for California to train and try and get my sand legs under me. I did Plyometric workouts led by Mike Rangle, with Karch Kiraly, Kevin Wong and Matt Olson. I also did some drills with Kevin and Matt. I stayed in Dana Point in Orange County with my partner Evan Engle. Evan and I got to train with some local teams as well as we got one day in with our good friend Brent Doble. After six days in California I flew to Fort Meyers Florida and met up with my parents and visited with my grandparents in Naples for two days. We then headed down to Ft Lauderdale to pick up Evan and prepare for the season opening Avp Qualifier in Miami. We were seeded 26th (the seeding is based on the number of points you and your partner accumulate over the previous years events you participated in) we drew the 7th seed Mark and Steve Van Zwieten of Florida a local team. Mark has qualified for 4 or 5 avp main draws. I have played with Mark at last years U-19/U-21 International selection camp. We drove about 35 minutes from our hotel to the site and checked in at about 8:30 we had the match and waited until noon to play. We drew center court which was cool because we had never played in the big stadium before. The first game was close throughout and Evan and I ended up winning 21-19. We came out in the second game and never really got into any kind of rhythm and lost 21-14. That brought us to the third and deciding match which back and forth until they went up 11-10 then we made a couple of errors and ended up losing the match 15-10. I was disappointed because it’s a match I feel we could have won. Mark and Steve went on to qualify for the main draw which I was glad to see as they are good guys. After the match we went and watched some other teams play to scout in case we run into them in the upcoming weeks. We then went back to our hotel and watched the tape of our match. We tape all of our matches to break down our own game as well as keep for future references if we play that team again. We just hung out Thursday night and then Friday went down to the site and watched for a few hours. We then went back to the hotel to pack and get ready to head back home on our way we dropped Evan off to an old buddy’s house in West Palm Beach. Then came the tedious 21 hour drive home (I must admit I’m getting a little soft used to flying). We got home late Saturday afternoon which gave us enough time to unload the car and try and get settled a little. We were all pretty tired as we drove straight through with a two hour nap in a McDonald’s parking lot. I slept in late on Sunday and got up and met my family as well as my oldest sister Stacey and her husband for a late breakfast. Then when I got home I decided it was time to put up my court so I worked on that all afternoon. I went back to school on Monday after being out for almost two weeks it was tough getting into the routine. Lifted Monday and Tuesday and then it was time to pack up again and get ready for Dallas. On Wednesday I went to school in the morning and then picked up my dad and we left for the airport. We had a direct flight into Dallas and got their about 7 p.m. Evan was suppose to get in at 9 as well as some friends of ours from Michigan playing on the womens side but as the travel gods would have it our plane was the only one on time. So needless to say we made three trips to the airport. To kill time my dad and I drove and found the site about ten minutes from our hotel. By the time Evan got in and we got to our hotel it was midnight. We found out that we were seeded 18 th and would be playing the 15 th seed in the 47 th of 48 matches. For the second week in a row we sat around and waited for over four hours to play our match. We played a 6’5 guy and Avp veteran Jim Nichols we played point for point and just never seemed to get into a rhythm and lost the first game 21-19. The same thing in the second game and we could not really get going and lost the game 21-18 and the match. Once again I feel it’s a match we could have won. We stuck around and scouted again for awhile and then went back to the hotel. Went to dinner with our friends from Michigan and went back to the hotel and heard the tornado sirens weather hit real close by and they had golf ball sized hail and it looked like it snowed in some places. We packed and racked out early as we had an early morning flight. We got back to a balmy 74 degrees in Michigan and drove home from the airport. I can finally start training on my court and actually get as much playing time as the rest of the teams I have gotten to get back into my weight lifting and playing routine as the weather here is cooperating. I leave on the April 30th for Huntington Beach California and will update you upon my return.
California Training
April 1, 2008I am heading out to California to train until Sunday. I will be training with Mike Rangel owner of Plyocity and several other Avp Pro Beach Volleyball Players. After that I head to Florida for the first Avp Qualifier of the year at South Beach in Miami with partner Evan Engle on Thursday April 10th, 2008.
Copyright Stevo VanderWerp
