Game #1

I played my first official match tonight against a team in Herceg Novi. Herceg Novi is almost a two hour drive north up the coast of Montenegro almost to the border of Croatia. At one point we had to take a ferry across the water to cut the driving time by almost two hours Layne said. Our game started at 6:30, and we left Bar at 3:30. We didn’t arrive at the gym until one hour before game time. This was extremely unusual for me because we would always arrive a day before the game and then get to the gym like an hour and half before first serve. By the time we changed into our uniforms and game apparel, there was only 45 minutes before game time. We did the usual warm-up: Running around the court doing different exercises, stretching, rolling and blocking, partner warm-up, hitting lines, and then serving. Then it was game-time. 

We all stood on the sideline and waited for the ref to blow his whistle. Then, we all started walking forward clapping our hands. When we got half-way across the court, we met in the middle and did a cheer. Then we walked back to the sideline and walked to the center line to shake hands. Next, we ran over to Luka, high-fived him and then formed a line to high-five each other. The ref checked the line-up, and the game started. There are several differences in international play than in college volleyball:

(1) The libero cannot serve. This means that each middle blocker must serve.

(2) There are time-outs when one team reaches 8 and 16. And each team has 2 time-outs per game. This means there could potentially be 6 time-outs per game. (Thankfully, this did not happen tonight)

(3) After a time-out, the team cannot go back on the court until the ref blows his whistle. You must wait on the side line until the time-out is completely over.

(4) There is no break between the 2^nd and 3^rd sets. The time between the sets is the same as between all other sets.

(5) Each team is only allowed 4 subs per game. For those of you who do not know, college volleyball is allowed 12 subs. This means that there is no such thing as a defensive or serving specialist over here. And if a player is subbed out and then comes back in, the other person is not allowed to re-enter.

(6) Once the hitting lines portion of the warm-up starts, you are not allowed to wear a warm-up jacket. (This is not a big deal unless the gym is freezing as it was tonight.)

 The gym.

 Layne and I in our sweet team jackets.

Anyway, on to the actual game. We started off really slow, but ended up winning the first game pretty easy. The second game was even easier, with the other team only scoring 10 points. Luka decided to take all the starters (except for me and the libero) out for the third game. Most of these girls play on our second team and are a lot younger than me. We were down for most of the game, but after strong serving from one of my teammates, we pulled within 2 points. I was actually on the court at the end of the game, and scored the last two points with a block and kill. Overall, it should have been a lot easier of a win, but we did not play very well and let everyone get some playing time.

We have practice tomorrow evening and then have Sunday off. Layne and I are trying to find something to do on our day off. We shall see!