Pier 26 Hudson RIver Park. Court 1 Fri. 1:25pm Friend/Muagututia vs Dalhausser/ Lucena. Walking past the big board on Friday morning seeing our first round match up, I had to look twice. Day 1, AVP New York, Main Draw and we are up against one of the best teams in world. My smile could not have been any bigger and I remember thinking about the last two years. All of those long traffic filled drives to San Diego, freezing winter morning trainings, and here we are. You have to trust the process and this was just the next step in our journey. It felt good. It felt right.
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Let’s take a quick look back 2 years ago. Life was good, I had just finished my professional indoor career on a high note by winning the Swiss Cup and Cup MVP. A true storybook ending for my indoor career. Five years of playing in Europe helped me grow into a man, see some of the most beautiful sites in the world, and throughout it all, my passion for the sport was still at an all time high. I was so fortunate to be able to live this lifestyle for so long, but 8 months in Europe and 4 months in the States is emotionally and physically demanding. I was ready to get back to the states and resume a more normal American life. I knew that even though my indoor career was over, I was not done playing volleyball. I don’t think I’ll ever be done playing volleyball, I mean, I’m always up for quick pepper session, ask any of my friends. I moved back to California to earn my MBA and to pursue my passion for beach volleyball; a slight pivot from indoor volleyball.
When I was not in school, you could find me at Huntington Beach pier getting as many touches as I could. We had a healthy group of 8-10 guys that were down to play all the time. One of those guys included my friend Myles Muagututia.
It seemed that we would always be on two different teams when we played that summer. Myles was an athletic freak and had such great ball control to go along with his buttery soft hands. I knew our play styles and personalities would work well together. I asked him about playing together in the upcoming CBVA and we decided we were going to play that tournament together. We ended up losing to Reid Priddy and Travis Woloson in the playoffs, but we had played some good ball and I realized our play styles complemented each other nicely. After that tournament, we agreed that we were going to remain partners and start playing in as many AVP qualifiers as we could afford.
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Fast forward through our first season. We qualified for the last three tournaments of the year and even earned a top 10 finish in Hermosa. Not only did we exceed our expectations, but had a hell of good time doing it. When we agreed to play together, I knew we were a bit undersized, so we would have to work that much harder on our defense and our side outs. We had to beat these bigger teams with our ball control and our speed. We run our offense loosely based on the style of Polish ballers Kantor/Losiak. They run so many different kinds of sets and keep their opponents guessing on defense. Our style of offense allows us to spread the court and make that bigger blocker work. We have a ton of different colors for each set which includes multiple different paces and location as opposed to just the standard up and down set. We don’t need to worry about a big block if they aren’t there to block us. In our first year, I think we were finding success being athletic and surprising teams with our style of play. This year we are fine tuning our offense and gameplay so we can be even more crisp when we run different types of plays.
I started writing this blog post over a week ago. I was going to write about a stroke of luck for #teamMyFriend. To go from losing in the Seattle qualifier, then having enough points to possibly sneak into the San Francisco main draw, it was a great story. But that was last week, and as the story has changed since then.
After a unfulfilling weekend in Seattle, Myles and I came home humbled and motivated. We knew that we needed to be more aggressive with our offense. We needed to be swinging on more balls than we have been. We had a great couple practices with our coach Corey Glave. The focus was attacking and coming in hard every single approach and prepare to swing. If you have to shoot then you shoot, but you want to be available to swing. I would say I swing more than Myles does, but both of us need to get our numbers up. We had a great couple trainings where we were really finding a good attacking rhythm. Myles was swinging on more balls than I had seen him hit all year and he was scoring a ton. For Myles I think it is learning to trust the swing. He has all the tools in the game to be a great player, athleticism, composure, competitive drive. Especially as a former Stanford football player, he knows how to step up when the pressure rises. I am bummed I never get to see him play defense because I am always looking at the attacker, and I will get yelled at by my coach if I look back while I am blocking. I have to “finish the block”. Something else I am currently working on as a blocker.
We landed in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon and went straight to the venue to get a practice in. We still didn’t know whether we were in the main draw or in the qualifier. We were the #1 seed in the qualifier, but Reid Priddy and his partner Jeremy Casebeer were in Portugal trying to qualify for the FIVB event there. If they were to win their match Wednesday night then #teamMyFriend would be automatically entered into the main draw for the first time ever!
Priddy/Casebeer ended up losing their qualifier match and were flying back to play for the AVP San Fran and we were back in the qualifier. Damn. We prepared for this to happen and so we reset our focus and prepared like we normally would. We have always been in the qualifier, why change now? These qualifiers are always a grind and sometimes you make it out alive. If you can manage to get that final win to get you into the main draw…pure elation.
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In San Fran we did not make it out alive. We lost to a young athletic team in our first round. This was the first time Myles and I have ever lost a first round match in the qualifier. Our first time ever being the #1 seed in the qualifier and we lost the first round. How could this happen? After the match I kept thinking about all the distractions before this event started. Are we in the main draw? Are we out? Did I let these distractions affect my focus before the qualifier? I don’t know. All I know is that we got beat and this was a learning opportunity for us. A painful one.
Worst lost of our partnership, just wasn’t our tournament. So we will go back to work….together. I know Myles and I haven’t reached our potential as a team yet. And to just switch partners after a couple bad tournaments just doesn’t make sense to me. There is still a lot we need to learn about each other and there is even more more to learn about this game. A wise friend of mine, Tri Bourne, said “team chemistry is worth at least 2 or 3 points a set.” I couldn’t agree more.
Myles and I have lost and grown together over these last two years and every tournament I know we get at least 1% percent better. We haven’t played anywhere close to 100 tournaments yet, so you will continue to see #teamMyFriend out there smiling and battling it out. This sport is just too fun.
