January 14 saw us loading up and out of Maribor for Pula, Croatia. Thankfully we were able to do this drive without all the stops and delays that we encountered on our way to Maribor from Prague. We got checked into the Hotel Pula (essentially right on the beach on the Adriatic Coast) and had a quick lunch in the hotel’s buffet, which was seemingly open only for us. Most everyone seemed pretty excited by the extensive selection of vegetables.
The girls were free to see a little of the former Roman town, and that night we split up into three teams yet again to play. Tim’s Team headed through town to the hamlet of Veli Vrh just a few kilometers past the Coliseum. We beat up on a younger second division team but it was nice to see the middle finally connecting a little bit and our transition continued to improve. The gym was also really small, which of course is common over here, but many of the girls hadn’t seen such a gym so it was yet another eye-opening experience for those trying to decide whether or not they can really do this Europe thing.
The other two teams walked to the main Pula Sport Hall about 3 blocks down the road from the hotel. They scrimmaged simultaneously against OK Pula and the OK Pula Juniors. This club is historically strong boasting many former players currently in A1 Italy and on Croatia’s Senior National Team. OK Pula is also the current home of Bonita “Bo” Wise (U. Cincinnati) and Alex Dyer (Cornel) so our girls again got to spend some quality time learning about living in Europe from some of their peers. Many of the girls got to visit Bo and Alex’s pad near the gym, and I’m sure that some of them got to check out the nightlife (or lack thereof in the winter) with them as well.
Cory’s Team lost to OK Pula 1-3 and Ron’s Team lost 0-4 against the Juniors.
January 15 had a large group of our girls training at 11:00am with OK Pula’s team core (only 5 of their players aren’t in school during the day) and their popular coach Boris Brescic. Boris is well known as a great trainer of young juniors players, and he did a nice job exposing about 20 players to a real “Euro-Training”.
After training everyone hit the town or beach again, and that evening some of the girls split into two teams to play vs. OK Pula and OK Pula Juniors once again in the hall near the hotel. Again in was great to have Bo and Alex around spending so much time with our delegation and we thank them for taking such good care of everyone during our stay in their neighborhood.
Cory led his team to a 3-0 victory over the Juniors while Tim’s team split 2-2 in a match that ended in the middle of the 4th set due to time. As happens in Europe, we had to vacate the floor by 10:00pm on the nose as the local men’s indoor soccer team had the gym.
 |
