VBLI grass tournament with Marco (Chile)

Written by Friends, Video, Volleyball

Alisa invited me to play some grass volleyball a few days a go. She said she had a friend who needed a partner. I found out at 5am who I was playing with. His name was Marco (aka Chile – since he is from the country) but I’ve played with him a couple of times at central park. We all met up at Roosevelt and 74th Street and drove over to Eisenhower Park.

We arrived around 6:15am and helped VBLI with setting up in hopes of playing at a reduced rate. It took about one hour to set up tents, fill water bottles, and put up the nets. We then waited till 930am to start playing. I was in the B pool along with 3 other teams. Marco and I lost the first 2 sets. I am not sure why but I guess it took us a while to get oriented on the court. Immediately after the first game we played against our 2nd team and took both sets from them. We were then off for 1 game.

This was when we ate lunch (which we ordered back in the morning). We also discussed on what we needed to improve to ensure that we make it into the playoffs (top 3 teams advance). I felt that we would take both sets from our third team. We were playing against Andy (from Urban – Left most person in this picture) and his partner, Tod. Since I play with Andy regularly at Urban I felt as thought I knew his weaknesses. Unfortunately for us, it turned out that his partner was pretty good so we ended up splitting with them (1-1).

We did make it into playoffs and had to play Andi’s team again. This was the semifinal round and we only needed to win 1 game to advance into the finals (which was best 2 out of 3). Marco and I kept it together and made it into finals. We were up against the team we lost both sets to. I started getting really hyped for some reason. I guess I felt that if we made it this far we have to seal the deal.

Marco and I won the first two sets and came out first in our Pool! We got a bunch of free stuff (beach chair, 3 shirts, flask, cup, and a water bottle). We had our picture taken for VBLI, and I asked Matt to take our picture with my camera. It was great playing and winning with Marco, considering I have only played with him twice or so in Central Park.

Though we were finished there were still some pools which were in session. Colin was playing with “Papi” and Eric was playing with Stanley. Colin’s team lost and came in 2nd place in his pool while Eric and Stanley took 1st in their respective pool. It was great seeing many people I haven’t seen for a while and playing grass volleyball (this was my first time). It’s a lot easier than beach volleyball but still a notch harder than indoor.

I took some video clips with my canon A2200 and put a small montage together: