Arrival Day in Prague, Czech Republic. Welcome to European Volleyball! Today saw the majority of our 41 players arrive from the USA and have to play right off the plane; which is normal in this neck of the woods. With temperatures in Prague reaching below 0 (Fahrenheit) the girls had to negotiate Prague’s public transportation system and take a tram to both their match, and then dinner up by Prague Castle prior to walking home through the castle district. With 40 girls in country by match time, we divided the girls into 4 teams and got right into it
Team Mitch (Mitch Jacobs, Head Coach at Marshall University) met to take Line #22 for their match at 6:00pm vs. Olymp Praha. This tour favorite team won the Czech ExtraLiga (Top League) last year and is currently in 3rd place:
Melody Nua
Emily Brown
Kim Fletcher
Amy Palash
Stefanie Alde
Whitney Evers
Kelley Wernert
Cassie McLagughin
Lauren Miramontes
Camille Cunningham
Ashley Genslak
Team Amy (Amy Gillespie from Seminole State College) also met to take Tram #22 for their match vs. Slavia Praha (5th Place in Czech 1st Division) just a little farther down the line:
Nicole Westerterp
Sarah Moreno
Bryce Zimmerman
Kasey McBrearty
Christina Perkins
Molly Grossmann
Jessica Barrera
Lisa Drennan
Lauren Pierce
Much of Team Sammy (Sam Shweisky from UCF) took Tram #17 for their match vs. Bohemia (2nd Place in Czech 2nd Division), but that was only half of them. The other half got picked up at the airport by Tomas and driven directly to the hall to play fresh off the plane:
Deva Fowler
Rachelle Dosch
Kathryn Krtnick
Liesl Tesch
Sydney DeTurk
Brynn Maurer
Kahala Kabalis
Rachel Ehlers
Alyssa Montgomery
Katie Pommier
Team Cory (Cory Solomon, BIP) walked from the apartments about 20 minutes to play their match vs. Stresovice (8th Place in Czech 1st Division):
Brittany Pierpont
Kelly Broussard
Rene Ibekwe
Briawna Mueller
Lora Yankauskas
Lindsey Hill
Katie Weidner
Julie Renner
Robin Miramontes
Nikole Thompson
Everyone met for dinner (except Team Sammy who had the late match; we won’t mention where they had to eat) up by the castle afterwards, and then it was off to bed. Tomorrow will be a full day of training and matches, and we’ve got 4 days in Prague to enjoy and see all the sights…
Quick Player Entry From Someone Off to Bratislava with Marek on the Morning of Day 2…
By Emily Brown, University of Kansas
“What a crazy couple days!! From sitting in the airport in Prague playing Catch Phrase to finding our apartments, a couple practice sessions and I’m off to another destination! We’ve played a lot of volleyball in the past 24 hours and got to see one of the most beautiful places in the world. During a practice, Marek (Head Coach from Bratislava) had me work on some specific things, show some skills and ran me through a few drills by myself. Aside from about passing out – I need some conditioning – it went pretty well. Now I’m hoppin’ in a car with Marek to Bratislava, Slovakia to check it out for a few days! It’s been a great experience, can’t wait to see what Europe has
in store.”