SoCal RoadTrip 2017 Day2

Saturday the 4th of March started with a visit with Daniel's grandma in Manhattan Beach where he spent the night.  Next came 7 or 8 games on the beach just north of the famous pier.

Mark winding up

Mark finishing

Mark passing

Scott winding up

Chris in motion

Boom!!

 The drive down to Mission Beach was uneventful after an excellent meal at a Manhattan Beach Mexican restaurant.

SoCal Road Trip 2017 Day1

Chris, Daniel, Dave, Gregg, Mark, and Scott flew down to Southern California for 5 beautiful days of fun, sun, and volleyball. After landing at LAX on March 3rd, the first order of business was a trip to In-N-Out followed by a visit with Kent and a trip to DonutMan in Azusa.

Monkey Style

On Azusa Pacific courts

Tiger Tails...yum

Next came the drive back to Playa del Rey where we played 5 or 6 games on the beautiful beach just down the hill from Tom and Kate's place.

Chris with the Pokey

Mark cutting loose a Serve

And now a couple videos 

After some hot-tubbing at Tom and Kate's followed by dinner at the Honey Kettle Fried Chicken and a quick stop at Tripel for a brew, Dave detected one of our tires going flat in the parking lot due to extensive wear.  By midnight we had a replacement van.  Thankfully no blow-out at highway speeds!

Kangaroo Love

We haven't seen much of our favorite Asstralian lately, so we were wondering what he's been up to.

2015 WA State Senior Games Champions, 50+ Division

Front Row Left to Right: Joe Balleto, Bob Hanson, Loren Johnson, Gregg Vermillion

Back Row: Lamar Hurd, Dave Lawrence, Chris Nelson, Blake Surina, John van den heuvel

We had a great turnout for the Parks Appreciation Day event and made plenty of improvements.  Twenty three volleyball volunteers joined City workers and a high-school youth group to install a split rail fence and spread topsoil and bark dust.

The courts themselves saw the south fence shored up and new netting installed.  Some of the concrete wall received new paint, and thanks to City purchases, new nets and lines were installed.  The sand itself received some deep tilling on Friday by Scott and Chris, followed by a lot of shoveling and raking on Saturday to move sand from the edges and onto the courts. Many thanks to all those who participated.

Jake and Seth install fence posts that will keep goof-balls from driving cars where they shouldn't.

Martin was one of the few volleyball players who risked their back on the post hole digging.

Filling in the swale took lots of brawn.
Note that Matt (center) wore his "Burmeister Work Duds" including flip-flops.

 Parks Commissioner Christine did most of the hard work around the trees.

Carla proved her hands could do more than provide perfect sets.

In addition to being voted most photogenic fence mender...

Scott was responsible for pointing out which people weren't working hard enough. (Just kidding, JohnV).



Chris did lots of roto-tilling, shoveling, raking, and was designated net-installer.

 Slade looks so lonely working the SW corner.

 Only Mark had the strength to wield the big rake.  Kenny and Ben showed up even though they'd worked their "day jobs" over night.

 Here Ben demonstrates that shovels are more than a leaning post.

Owen moved sand and bark dust, too.

 Eric hasn't played yet on our sand courts, but he came out to the work party.
He goes to the top of the invite list.

 Not sure how Gritty can smile in the process of back-breaking work.

Andrea wasn't afraid of the big rake.  It's not  nearly as scary as trying to dig one of Gregg's spikes.

Myke demonstrated that he has added the patented roll-shot in his arsenal.

Harbor Heuvels at Huntsman 2012

The WA State Senior Games champion Harbor Heuvels traveled to St. George, Utah for the annual World Senior Games indoor 6-man tournament with the intent of improving upon their bronze medal finish in 2010.  Well, the field was much stronger this year, and the team is 2 years older, so it could manage only a 9th place finish (3rd place in silver division).  Some (like George) may argue that his absence was the prime reason for the large drop in finish placement, but we all know better.  This year the team added setter Bob Hanson who last played with Gregg back in their prime years (which we figured was 22 years ago) and strong-side hitter Larry Lawler, who last played with Loren, JohnV and George around about the same time before moving to Colorado in 1990.  Both were excellent additions to seasoned Huntsman veterans Blake, Gregg, Jeff, Jerry, John, and Loren.

Entering the tournament as 6th seeds, the team drew a tough pool schedule playing the 2nd and 3rd seeds in their first 2 matches before they had a chance to gel, but it eventually recovered and slammed the pool's 3rd place team 2-0 in a hard-fought battle.  A 9-5 pool record put the Heuvels as 1st seed in the silver bracket, missing the gold bracket by only a couple crucial points against eventual bronze division finishers (and Larry's buddies) Colorado.

In the silver bracket, the team fell 2 sets to 1 twice to the Minnesota Masters, both times in games marred by questionable referee decisions, but that's what happens sometimes when you play down to the level of your opponent.  Final record for the tournament was 17-9.

Thanks to Gregg's dad, who joined us for 2 days in the St. George sunshine, some pictures follow for your viewing pleasure. Here the team waits between sets trying to ignore a Minnesota Master.

Jeff's solid middle blocking shut down other teams' best blockers and enabled back-row defenders to dig up those hits that found their way around him.  The new protocol for USAV (and now Huntsman) tournaments is a pre-game wave to a non-existent crowd.  Jeff was the only one choosing to bask in the contrived glory. 

Jerry played some of his best ball with consistently good passing and defense and an occasional kill when we needed it most

Here Larry prepares for a weakside launch and slam after a nice pass from Loren.

 

 

Loren passing to Bob almost always resulted in an excellent set for the waiting front-row hitters.

Sometimes the ball was a blur after Blake hit it.  Sometimes it was his arm and sometimes his whole body.

Gregg enjoyed the 6-2 offense this year, as he shared setting duties with Bob, which allowed him to contribute as a weak-side hitter.

JohnV's middle hits were too quick for Chuck's camera, but his blocking shut down several of the stronger hitting teams. If you can find the ball in this photo, then you'll see John could do nothing to save Gregg from being tooled over the top, so that did not change.

During the team's first loss to the Minnesota Masters, their setter was way too effective with his jump-dumps into the middle, so Blake and JohnV were dispatched to remedy the matter. That's a grimace, not a smile.

Seaside 2012 Results, Photos, and Videos

Another great showing by Gig Harbor players at the largest sand volleyball tournament in the world. Lissa, Slade/Michael "Gritty" Miller, George/Ben, Chris/JohnV, Gregg/Dave, and some-timers Cy, Wes, Martin, Curtis/daughter)and Kim all played doubles on Fri/Sat. Good finishes known at the time of this posting included Lissa/Becca placing 3rd in women's B and Dave/Gregg also finishing 3rd in men's 45+.

Here's Dave showing BC Mike what a Gig Harbor block looks like.  Mike and Alex were a couple nice guys and excellent players from Vancouver who won the 50+ sand doubles tournament last year at the Huntsman World Senior Games.

On Sunday Ben/Gregg/JohnV/Geo/Dave and Mark "M-Rod" Roddy won the men's 4's.

First we feature JohnV, aka "The Wall." 
Or as the opponents call him after experiencing one of his block celebrations "The Asstralian."

Geo got out of the sand just like the old days...sort of.

M-Rod's kill percentage was high from the weak side.

Ben was a force passing well and generally dominating on the strong side.

Dave hit and especially blocked well.

And his blocks, as you can see, were significantly more "athletic" than JohnV's.

Ben was so impressed that he started imitating Dave in the back court.