Our first match today was against Northern California’s High Performance team.  This team has emerged this week as our rivals of this tournament.  After last night’s defeat, we were ready to get back in the gym and kick some butt.  Lead by strong setting and hitting by Matt Stork and the defense of Will Thomas, we were able to beat Nor Cal in 3 straight games, 25-21, 25-19, 25-15. 
Our afternoon match was the semifinals of the tournament.  Slovenia played Nor Cal and we played UAE.  The match was a battle.  Game one went to UAE.  We bounced back and took games two and three.  Game four went point by point, until UAE took the match 23-25.  Game five was a nail biter.  With UAE at mach point 13-14, Jake Piva came out with a huge block to tie up the game.  We thought we had it in the bag.  Unfortunately, UAE came back and beat us 14-16.  Heartbreaking. 

The match for third place took place this morning, us vs. Nor Cal.  We certainly wanted to be playing Slovenia in the finals of the tournament, but we just couldn’t pull it out last night.  We beat Nor Cal in four games, showered, and headed to the mountain in Maribor for some sightseeing.  We took the gondola up to the top for some hot dogs and beautiful views.  We then found some trampolines and John “Juan” Griffith amazed us with his back flips.  There was also an Alpine Slide where we took a ski lift to the top, got on a sled attached to a track, and sped off down the mountain.  Seeing Taylor Galliano riding the butt of Jake as they flew down the mountain was absolutely classic.  Also, at one point, David Freitag hit an unexpected hill and shouted out “What the @#*$!” for the entire mountain to hear.   Good times were had by all. 

We woke up early today and boarded a bus to Vienna, Austria.  There we had a few hours to eat lunch and wander around the city.  We saw extravagant buildings once owned by the Hapsburgs and enjoyed shopping.  Yes, we are boys, but we love to shop!  Possibly the highlight of the city was seeing these two crazy break-dancers performing on the streets.  There stunts were things we could never dream of doing ourselves, but we’d kill them in a game of volley!  Back on the bus we went.  Four and a half hours and two movies later, we arrived in Prague.  We are pumped to explore a new city.

Today we were given they day to check out Prague.  We started out the morning by traveling to the Prague Castle.  There we ate an awesome lunch of goulash and dumplings.  We wandered down across the Charles Bridge to the Old Town Square, saw the Astronomical Clock, and yes, enjoyed more shopping.  Cory told us that when the maker of the Astronomical Clock finished making it, people cut out his eyes so that no more could be made like it.  Prague wanted to have the only one in existence.  Pretty cool stuff.  Tomorrow we face two Czech teams.  Hopefully the competition is tough.