Nationals Perspectives

2011 USA Nationals Article
Team: Whoosh NYC – Women’s AA
Captain: Lauren Schmidt

At the start of the indoor season, Whoosh was already looking forward to the 2011 USA Adult Open Volleyball Championships to be held in Dallas, Texas. Early on, the team made the commitment to attend nationals with hopes of coming home with a gold medal, and prepared by playing together in regular season tournaments from November to May. Upon arriving in Dallas, Whoosh hoped that all of their hard work would pay off.

Whoosh was placed in a 7-team pool for the second year in a row. A 3-0 start on the first day put the team in a good position moving into Sunday, however 2 of the 3 matches slated for Sunday were also against undefeated teams. After a long day of play and lots of tough games, Whoosh finished 6-0 in pool play and a number one seed moving into Monday’s playoffs!

The first match on Monday morning was a relatively easy win for Whoosh, and moved them into one of two top seeds for the gold bracket. Whoosh then had to face one of the teams from their pool (which had been a tough win) and unfortunately lost in 3. Headed down to the loser’s bracket, the team was confident they could still make it to gold. The last match on Monday was a very fulfilling, dominating a very strong team from start to finish. Heading in to Tuesday morning’s 9am match, Whoosh had a very slow start and lost the first game. However they fought back in the second game with a heartbreaking loss 32-30 in what should be a 25-point game. Thus ended Whoosh’s run for the gold, and the team finished the tournament tied for 5th place with Creole! It was a tough loss but as usual, the team was already fired up for redemption in 2012 by the time they landed back in NYC!

A very special thank you to Hazel Goldstein and the Whoosh Volleyball Club for their support throughout the season, we hope to bring back gold next year!

• < Prev
• Next >