Danielle Scott Weblog

I am back in Colorado Springs after a whooping three days at home. What a quick trip but as always it was a joy spending time with my family… I surprised my mom. She was so excited. And guess it was a surprise to my great nephew Stefan who is three. His reaction was priceless. He screamed, yelled TT (short for aunt), ran around the room, then ran and leaped into my arms. So cute. During my short stay I got one workout in, dinner with my dad, has some of my sister’s slamming gumbo, went to the doctor twice with my mom who returning to Colorado with me, and took care of a little business. Whewww, I am tired from writing all of that.

Well, the Grand Prix had an unfortunate end of us. We needed only to win our last match against the Netherlands but we didn’t respond. Even though we didn’t make the finals I think it was a good tournament for us. We beat Cuba twice a team we will see again in the NORCECA qualifier for the World Cup. We be Russia in three and lost to them in five…. And played a little more consistently than we have in the passed although we will really have to work on making fewer errors are critical moments.

Now we are preparing for the NORCECA. I’ve been a bit under the weather the last couple of days. Hopefully come Monday I will feel much better. Three weeks will pass quickly.

GO USA!
Blessings,

Danielle

Our last leg in Russia we went 2-1 again. We beat Cuba 3-1, lost to Russia 2-3 we could have done some things better but the officiating didn’t help, and beat Kazakhstan 3-1. The trip to Macau was a long one. We had to pick up our bags three times and recheck-in. Definitely need to complain to the FIVB who does our travel arrangements. But the trip is so worth it so far now that we are here. We are staying a a new hotel that has only been open for 6 months… It is beautiful. I would trade the OTC dorm room in any day! Finally after two weeks on the road I woke up without my back hurting because of the mattresses. The bathroom is a main attraction too. There is a large bath tub on one wall and the shower on the other wall (without specific dimensions, this is a nice sized bathroom… Let me tell you about the shower … there is a removable massage shower head which actually sits on a hook that only reaches my neck, but I can work with that… Just below that hook is a button that turns on this round shower head fixture coming from the ceiling, letting the flood gates of rain pour down on you… It’s pretty cool, although I didn’t particularly like using it when I don’t want to get my hair wet. Anyway, there is FREE Internet, and fitness center which also has a sauna, and the food is great!

We have several days to prepare for this week competition verse Cuba, China and the Netherlands who is coached by Avital, Arie Selinger’s son. Three very strong teams. Bring it on.

GO USA!
Danielle

Tomamo chocolate 0-3… That is an expression the Brazilians use when one losses a match in three sets. Although we lost in three, there were some really great defensive plays made and pretty good sideout attack when our passing was successful. Where we failed was in our counter attack (transition), we didn’t serve very tough and the blocking was off. Even with all of that the set scores were within a few points difference. We will see China again before the final round. I expect that we will have better results.

Now off to Russia… OH MY GOODNESS lets talk about my worst flight ever! So we are late arriving in Moscow, from Rzeszow, Poland, and the flight attendants of Aeroflot were so unpleasant! They basically faulted we the passengers for the delayed flight. We had recheck in upon our arrival in Moscow…they gave us a row number without a letter seat assignment. I am thinking great I will have the entire row to myself, but I quickly realized that all of our tickets were issued in the way. Not only were we an hour late arriving for our connecting flight, it was further delayed by and hour and a half! We finally begin boarding and upon entering the flight there were of course the two sections…we headed for the right, yep economy class. The first couple of rows there were about eight kids… I thought wow that is a usual amount of kids to travel from pamper age to about age 6. But that wasn’t it … there were children scattered about throughout the economy class. Some stretched out over two seat, some in the EXIT ROW! And it seemed that no one was claiming them. So we had to grab and open seat. What a nightmare…. The flight attendants were not trying to help with seating in the least bit. Needless to say there was no sleeping on this eight hour flight. Even worse there was a man who walked down the aisle with a portable potty! It was not empty! I’ll have to post Kim Glasses Myspace so that you can get a detailed account.

It is already 10:30pm on Wednesday so we have only one more day of preparation for our up coming matches against Cuba, Russia and Kazaksstan.

Go USA!

Danielle

PS Heather is doing better hopefully we will be in full strengthen by this weekend.

Grand Prix 2007 has started and USA volleyball has started out right! Well, although wins are not always pretty we will take and ugly win any day. We started out really slowly our first match against Poland. Down 0-2 there was a twenty minute break that allowed us to regroup. We spoke specifically about the things we needed to better and was better able to execute upon the start of the third set. I am really proud of the team in how we recomposed ourselves and really teamed together against all adversities. We showed tremendous character and fight.

Tonight unlike yesterday we started the match strong and maintained it until the finished. We were so focused that we didn’t realize some of the technical time outs until the buzzer. This time up 2-0 at the break, we really wanted to keep the momentum going into the third. For the first time in a while, we were able to finish a good team off and not wait for them to make errors or take the lead. Yes, that happens. We some times shoot ourselves in the foot so to speak. Tonight’s match was a good stepping stone for us as we are preparing ultimately for the NORCECA zone qualifier for the World Cup, which is the first Olympic qualifier.

GOD is Great and all praise be to Him as He blesses, Ty, Cassie, Rob, Court, OG, KimG, KW, Coley, CLee, Heat, Jen, myself and all of USA Volleyball Staff to grow in unity, experience, character, ability, patience and all the things it takes to build a good team. AMEN!

Tomorrow we will play China. Rrrrrrrr! We scrimmaged them four set a few days ago and won three of the four sets. However that was practice tomorrow it will be to finish first in our pool for this leg. We were able to gain an idea as to what we will be up against. Although they didn’t play at least two of their starters, we were able to control most of the sets, getting good touches on their attack, defending and transitioning out of the play.

GO USA, beat china!

Danielle

PS All of you praying folks please lift up Heather for the speedy and complete healing of her abdominal muscle and for healing of all of our aches and pains. AMEN!