Champions of the World!

Well, okay, Champions of Syracuse!

Well, okay, Champions of Syracuse City Recreation League Class C!

Last night, my volleyball team fought through eight games in three matches to clinch the Class C Syracuse championship. Along with the trophy we picked up, I also came home with a gigundous hematoma on the outside of my right knee. I knocked it on the floor while diving near the end of our seventh game, and then about halfway through the last game, I squatted down and my knee felt a little tight. I looked down to see what looked just like half a lacrosse ball under the skin on my knee. Good old R.I.C.E. (rest, ice, compression, and elevation, of course) seems to be doing the trick. It's now still quite swollen, but it's much more diffuse and doesn't look like it's going to explode anymore.

Our first match as we went into the last night of the double-elimination tournament was against a team we'd already beaten once. It took us a while to get on our game, and they beat us in the first game, the second game was close with us on top, and then the third game, played to 15 instead of 25, was a ridiculously nail-biting 21 to 19, since we had to win by two points, of course.

We sucked down some energy gels between matches to keep the sugar and caffeine levels up - everyone on the team is a mountain biker and we came prepared. The next match was against a team we'd just played the night before. They were solid that night, and we had imploded, seemingly unable to pass the ball to our setters if our lives depended on it. We did a good job of analyzing their strengths, and adjusted our game to compensate. We took the match quickly in two games but they were warming up and we were getting more tired.

With that match won, it meant that both teams had lost one match in the tournament, and we had to play each other again immediately for the championship. We split the next two games closely, but momentum was on our side. The last game started off even, with a six to six score, before we started to make a run on serves. Pretty soon it was about twelve to eight, and then finally that magical number 15 appeared on the scoreboard and it was over.

Volleyball is a great sport. When it's played well, it's fast, powerful, and violent. There is a tremendous amount of power and skill necessary to play at the highest levels, and though we're not up there of course, we still manage to get some pretty good attacks going from time to time. It's so very satisfying when I'm on my game, get a good set, and have that sensation that time slows down and I can hang up above the net for a while, take a good look at where the blockers are, and then pound the ball down around them. This is the first time in years that I've gotten back into the sport, after having played a few years back in the city B league, and on an excellent boys high school team many years before that.

Though I've been short on cycling fitness of late, the good news is that I've gotten back a couple inches of my vertical leap that I'd lost after starting bike riding. That darn battle between fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers is a tough one.

So, now we head on to contest the overall city championship. The winners from the "A", "B", and "C" classes do a round-robin double elimination tournament. By all rights, the A winners should mop the floor with the B and C teams, so we have nothing to lose, and it should be a lot of fun. All I have to do is get my knee loosened up by next week and I'll be set to go.