ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (June 11, 2009) – After a 9 and ½ hour flight from LAX, we landed in Amsterdam. The FIVB had a nice bus for us to ride into on our way down to Rotterdam. We are staying in a nice little hotel called the Domina Hotel…everyone has been great! Our travel party is 21 deep…14 players and 7 staff. The outside attackers are Scott Touzinsky, Matt Anderson, Sean Rooney and Jayson Jablonsky. The middles are David Lee (Captain), Andy Hein, David Smith and Russell Holmes. Brook Billings and Evan Patak are at opposite with Kevin Hansen and Donald Suxho taking the setting duties.  Our two liberos are Rich Lambourne and Alfee Reft. The staff is Head Coach, Alan Knipe…Assistant Coaches, Gary Sato and myself.  Chris Jackson is the Technical Coordinator.  Aaron Brock is our trainer.  Dr. Michael Terry is the Team Doctor and Rob Browning is the Head of Delegations.  Our host is a very nice man who we call Jos, short for Joseph.

 After settling into the rooms for a half hour, we decided to get the guys out for a workout and get the legs moving… We had an efficient practice as we handled the ball quite well. Felt great to get going. Dinner and bed was the call for the guys as we were pretty spent from the days’ travels.  

(June 12) – Wake up…a little jet lagged and grab some food downstairs. The hotel has provided some very good food for us and the service is perfect. Everyone helping us is wonderful! We head out to practice at noon and get a good sweat going…the guys were great…they are all truly professionals. We get back to the hotel and after another meal, the guys sort of do their own thing as we’ve got some free time. I joined a group that headed to the Rotterdam Zoo, some guys went into town and a couple others cruised out to Antwerp, Belgium. I wish I had heard the door when that group was leaving…actually it was only Jackson and Brock…good bonding for them.  The travel schedule may seem a little brutal to some but it is good for us to get on the road early and knock out the Europe stop right away…and really for a new staff and a mixed group of veterans and young guys this provides us a big challenge to get on the same page quickly.  Off to bed…it’s game day tomorrow! 

(June13) – Wake up a little more refreshed and head out to a serve/pass.  The guys seem ready and we’re in and out. We watch some video on them and essentially are blind going in as we have limited information on the Dutch team…I can tell you that they’re BIG!  It’s 3pm and we’re boarding the bus to the Sports Palace Ahoy…I believe that the guys are ready to play an opponent in a different jersey. We start the match with Hansen, Patak, Rooney, Touzinsky, Lee, Hein and Lambourne. The Netherlands come out hitting the serve and really controlling the serve/pass game…we have a difficult time sustaining any momentum. It was a strange match in that every time I looked up at the score, I found myself surprised that we were only down by 1. David Lee has been a warrior and Kevin Hansen came up with some timely stuffs. He brought some great energy to the team…I have to give a ton of credit to the opposition. They played hard all night and drove us off the net. We lose the first two sets 22-25 and 19-25. We make a couple changes to the lineup…we insert Anderson for Touzinsky, Billings for Patak and Suxho for Hansen. This lineup provided us a nice change of speed and that change kept us hanging around. We never led by more than one and only had one scoring run of more than one but we had plenty of chances. Team USA lost set 3 and the match 24-26.  Message in the locker room:  We are going to be better, we know it! Let’s come out and play each point completely and show everyone how much it matters!

(June 14) – So we get up after a long night of video with the staff…we feel like if we can pass the ball we can have our way with them at the net…we need to be in system more to accomplish our objectives.  We decide we’re going to go with Suxho, Patak, Anderson, Rooney, Lee, Hein and Lambourne for the match at 3pm. Anderson gets us off to a nice start with a bic then goes back to serve and comes up with a huge dig in area 6  and Rooney buries the ball to turn the point. Tons of credit to the guys and David Lee, the captain, for turning it up a notch and having that relentless approach to the match. That point turned into two more for us and we never let up until we won 25-16 in set 1. Set two saw some different matchups and we played even the whole way losing 30-32. We had opportunities but we had no answer for #14 Niels Klapwijk. He is a young lefty with quite an arm! Set 3 sees the Americans out strong behind the serving of Patak and the good decisions by our setter, Suxho. We win 25-17. Close out the match! We enter set 4 and immediately go down 1-4. Alan takes a timeout. This provided us an opportunity to refocus and get back to what was working. We played them fairly even the rest of the way never really threatening and lose 20-25. On to the deciding set 5 and the Americans are ready. We discuss matchups and where we would like to start…we settle on Row 1.  Suxho is scoring at 40%, next server, Anderson is scoring at 40% with Patak following shortly after…he is scoring at 45%.  Donald set Rooney bic right away and we’re off. By the time we get to Patak, we’re up 8-3 and switching sides. Touzinsky came in and scored a huge point off the bench and we were running to the finish line. Up 10-6, we sub in David Smith as a blocker for Suxho…we win 15-6! Smith was big..he was involved in several key plays as we closed them out. Great win for USA!  Rooney and Lambourne deserve to be mentioned here…they were both huge passing and Rich came up with dig after dig totaling 18 in the 5 sets. Sean bailed us out in a few high ball situations and stuffed some real nice overhead sets. Anderson was unstoppable on the bic!!! Great job to Donald for getting the right guys the ball at the right time…and great job to the entire staff for getting Coach Knipe his first National Team win! 

We have practice in the morning and the rest of the day to sight see…probably Amsterdam.  Departing Holland for Italy on Tuesday.  Looking forward to getting to Italy and earning another win!

 Go USA! …and Go Lakers tonight!

John