Winning!!!

     We won! We won! We won! All right, now that I have said that let me explain the whole day to you. (Sidenote: I just learned that ‘alright’ is not a word.) I think I have already mentioned on here before that I am not a morning person. Well, Saturday was one of those exceptions! I was a morning pig! In Sweden, they don’t say morning person; they say morning pig. (Sidenote: they also don’t say ‘pain in the butt’; they say ‘pimple in the butt’.) Why was a morning pig? Because I woke up to find out the fantastic news that the Cardinals won the World Series! I wish I could have watched the game, but I was just so excited that they won! (Sidenote: I thought the Cards lost game 6. I woke up 6:17am (11:17pm cst) for a moment so I checked to see if they won. When I looked up the score, it was 8-9. I was half asleep and didn’t think to make sure that was the final. Man was I happy when I woke up for real on Friday and found out that they actually won.) We had a short practice Saturday morning before the match. Daniel, our coach, picked Meghan and me up to take us to the gym because it is normally raining so he always drives us. After practice, we went up to the clubhouse for lunch. A few of the mothers made us spaghetti. (Sidenote: Swedes put ketchup on their spaghetti.) It was delicious! We took our pre-match walk, and then it was game time against Örebro.

     Set 1 was a back and forth battle. We made a push in the end to close out the first set 25-19. The highlight of the first set was a kill I had. The ball was passed pretty tight so Meghan jump set the ball drawing both Örebro’s middle and left side blockers to jump with her. She set me a ‘B’ (as we call it, OR back 1, A, etc.). I had no block and crushed the ball within the 3-meter line. Örebro’s libero was in the line of fire. Fortunately, she got her hands up just in time so that she did not get hit in the face. I am going to try to get the video of this kill because it really was a picture perfect situation! We started from behind in the second set, and it stayed that way until the end. We lost the second set 19-25. Starting off strong has been one of our weaknesses every match (and each set). Set 3 started out 2-8. We were behind for the majority of the set including 11-16 and 18-21. Örebro had set point at 23-24. We tied it up at 24-24, and it was back and forth until the end of the set. I had a straight down block to get the advantage at 27-26. I blocked the outside a second time in a row except this time the block was sent to the end line. It was without a doubt in, but the referee called it out. (Sidenote: there are no line judges here.) We won the next two points to win the set 29-27. The fourth set was the first time that we have started out on top and stayed on top throughout the whole set. We took set four 25-19 to obtain our first Elitserien victory!!! It was a great team victory with four players having double-digit points. I had 15 kills with 1 ace and 2 blocks. (Sidenote: I asked about how blocking stats are kept. I was correct that they are not kept the same way as in America. If there are two players jumping on a block, then the person keeping the stats just picks whom to give the statistic to. I am going to go ahead and say that this is completely inaccurate, especially considering that the stats for this match say that I had 15 kills in 15 attacks. What can you do?!) I was named the Player of the Match/MVP for our team again. This time I was given some purple flowers! (Sidenote: If you know me at all, you know that purple flowers are a great gift for me!) I was so proud and happy with how our team played. It felt so great to get that W!!!

      After the match, Meghan and I relaxed a bit, ate dinner, and got ready to go out. We started the night at one of our new Swedish friend’s apartment, Mattias. We were thrilled when we got there to find football on the TV. It was not futbol, but real American football! I was even more excited to get to watch the Nebraska football game. Later on in the night, we headed to a club where Sahara Hotnights were playing. They are a Swedish girl band, but all their songs are in English. I didn’t know any of their songs, but it was still a lot of fun.

I can really tell that I am settling into life in Ljungby. The line to get into the club was super long. I saw some people that I knew though close to the front, and we cut in line with them! Everyone else around us in line says, “Oh, are you the American volleyball players? You won today!” It felt so great to know that people were really excited about our team. Overall, it was a great day and night of fun with my new team!

     To view the stats, go to http://www.cupassist.com/pa/livescore/women/stats.php?year=2011&id=M_W11_12-1112.htm. The stats were not taken correctly, but the number of kills is correct. To view some pictures from the match, go to http://brightphoto.se/start/harlig-seger-for-tjejerna. To read (google translate) a short article about the match, go to http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=106&artikel=4772574.