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Post by BIP on Jun 16, 2013 17:26:56 GMT -5
The BIP/USA Development Team just landed in Guangzhou, China and will transfer to Shanghai for a day of sightseeing prior to setting up camp in Huaian for the first of two tournaments this week. The team is travelling in parallel with the Pac-12 Conference All Star Team and each team will play 6 matches over this 10-night trip after a 2-day training camp at LMU in Los Angeles this weekend. The final leg of the trip will have the teams in Beijing. BIP/USA Roster: Jeff Nelson Head Coach New Mexico Shawn Garus Assistant Coach South Carolina Debbie Hendricks Assistant Coach Metro State Skye Gullatt Freshman 1994 180cm Middle New Mexico Emily Helm Junior 1992 167cm Libero Arkansas Kelsey Snider Sophomore 1992 185cm Middle Colorado State Taylor Brauneis Junior 1991 178cm Setter Florida Alison Landwehr Graduate 1990 182cm Setter Iowa State '12 Alexandra Morgan Junior 1991 185cm Middle Kentucky Samantha Peters Junior 1991 185cm Middle/Opp Colorado State Sara McClinton Sophomore 1993 188cm Outside Kansas Alexis Austin Freshman 1994 188cm Outside/Middle Colorado Bailey Hunter Graduate 1989 185cm Outside Doprastav Bratislava, SVK (Georgia Tech '12) Lexi Ross Junior 1991 187cm Universal New Mexico Kayla Neto Graduate 1990 187cm Outside Cal State Fullerton '12 Match Schedule (Details Subject to Change): Huaian City: Huaiansh Tiyuguan - 淮安镇淮楼东路1号 6/19 5pm Jejiang vs. Pac-12 All Star 7:30 Jingsu vs. USA Development (on TV) 6/20 2pm Jingsu Junior Team vs. USA Development (Scrimmage) 4pm Jejiang Junior Team vs. Pac-12 All Star (Scrimmage) 6/21 5pm Jejiang vs. USA Development 7:30 Jingsu vs. Pac-12 All Star (on TV) Beijing Daxiushengtiyuguan - 北三环西路11 6/23 5pm August 1st vs. USA Development (on TV) 7:30pm Tianjin vs. Pac-12 All Star (on TV) 6/24 5pm Tianjin vs. USA Development (on TV) 7:30pm August 1st vs. Pac-12 All Star Team (on TV) 6/25 5pm USA second finish vs. Chinese second finish (on TV) 7:30pm USA first finish vs. Chinese first finish (on TV) More info on the Pac-12 Team can be found at: blog.pac-12.com/pac-12-announces-china-bound-all-star-womens-volleyball-team/pac-12.com/Sports/VolleyballW/VolleyballWArticle/tabid/261//Article/201279/Pac-12-volleyball-all-start-team-set-to-begin-China-tour.aspxWe will post Player Blogs for the BIP/USA Team here on this thread, as well as match scores for all matches. As links (either live feed or simple postings) become available for matches/photos I will post them here as well. If anyone has questions or special requests, please send them to me via email. Thanks, Tim
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Post by BIP on Jun 17, 2013 9:42:07 GMT -5
BIP/USA Development Team, Update #1 June 14-15 at LMU By Emily Helm, University of Arkansas
As I set out to LMU for the first time ever I was anxious to meet my teammates that I was going to be playing with for the next two weeks in China. We had three training sessions to get through before we set out on our adventure to China. All us girls were from different schools and different conferences which made it fun. Our first session was mainly trying to work together to get used to playing with twelve strangers. We started out with basic games of sixes to see where everyone was at and to work out the nerves. For not knowing each other our chemistry was instant. I thought everyone came out with a lot of intensity which made me excited for the upcoming weeks. With the first training session out of the way we headed to dinner. Everyone was exhausted after dinner so we headed back to dorms and went to bed to prepare for the two practices ahead of us.
When that alarm went off the next morning, I felt like it came too soon. We all headed to breakfast as a team. Then the fun began. Our second practice started, this practice was more detailed oriented because we found some things we needed to work on from our previous training session. We focused mainly on serving and serve receive. As practice came to an end everyone was starting to feel a little more tired. We sluggishly headed to the dinning hall for lunch then it was nap time.
Finally our last training session came before we headed to China. We all knew this one would be mostly scrimmaging. We scrimmaged with our team for the first part then at the second half we scrimmaged the PAC 12 All-Star Team. The girls on both sides of the net were very competitive, which made it fun. Once we finished with the scrimmage our last training session was complete. Currently I sit here at the dining hall eating our last American meal before we head out to China on the red-eye tonight. Everyone eagerly awaiting our trip to China, some of us not looking forward to this long flight…
[Editor's Note: We made it to China, had a hectic day sight-seeing in Shanghai, and are all fed and settled into our rooms in Huaian now. Ready for practice tomorrow and everyone is seemingly doing well. Update on "Day 1" to come tomorrow]
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Post by vbnerd on Jun 17, 2013 17:22:07 GMT -5
August 1 is a team name?
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Post by Phaedrus on Jun 17, 2013 17:59:48 GMT -5
A mis-translation. The team is a part of the 81st division of the Chinese army. They have been the tops in Chinese sports for years. People refer to them as Ba-yee team, or 8-1 team.
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Post by pogoball on Jun 17, 2013 19:03:06 GMT -5
From the PAC-12 link above, the all-star roster:
Name College Year in School Height Position Inky Ajanaku Stanford Freshman 6-3/190 cm Middle Blocker Liz Brenner Oregon Sophomore 6-1/185 cm Outside Hitter Hayley Crone USC Sophomore 5-9/175 cm Setter Shelby Dalton Utah Sophomore 6-1/185 cm Outside Hitter Kelcey Dunaway Washington Senior 6-2/188 cm Middle Blocker Macey Gardner Arizona State Freshman 6-0/182 cm Outside Hitter Marcelina Glab Washington State Junior 6-2/188 cm Middle Blocker Natalie Hagglund USC Junior 5-9/180 cm Libero Alyssa Jensen^ California Freshman 5-11/180 cm Setter Madi Kingdon Arizona Sophomore 6-1/185 cm Outside Hitter Arica Nassar Oregon State Sophomore 6-1/185 cm Outside Hitter/Middle Blocker Lauren Plum Oregon Junior 5-5/175 cm Setter Kelly Reeves UCLA Junior 6-0/182 cm Outside Hitter
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Post by OptimusPrime on Jun 17, 2013 21:52:00 GMT -5
From the PAC-12 link above, the all-star roster: Hayley Crone USC Sophomore 5-9/175 cm Setter Natalie Hagglund USC Junior 5-9/180 cm Libero Alyssa Jensen^ California Freshman 5-11/180 cm Setter Lauren Plum Oregon Junior 5-5/175 cm Setter Its been a while since I've had to covert centimeters to feet and inches but something is wrong with these numbers
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Post by vbshrink on Jun 17, 2013 22:26:28 GMT -5
Good luck to both teams, and especially to UA's Emily Helm - WPS!!!!
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 18, 2013 0:30:05 GMT -5
From the PAC-12 link above, the all-star roster: Hayley Crone USC Sophomore 5-9/175 cm Setter Natalie Hagglund USC Junior 5-9/180 cm Libero Alyssa Jensen^ California Freshman 5-11/180 cm Setter Lauren Plum Oregon Junior 5-5/175 cm Setter Its been a while since I've had to covert centimeters to feet and inches but something is wrong with these numbers ::) 2.54 cm/in (exactly) And yes, something is wrong with (some of) those numbers. 5-9 = 175. 5-11 = 180. 5-5 = 165.
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Post by BIP on Jun 18, 2013 22:08:54 GMT -5
BIP/USA Development Team, Update #2 June 16-17, Travel Day(s) By Taylor Brauneis, University of Florida
So the adventure begins! The long trip to China was approaching and we were all a bit nervous about the length of time we were in the air. Before we boarded the plane, we had to celebrate Emily Helm’s 21st birthday! So the 21 year olds and Emily decided to get a drink at the bar in the airport. {Editor’s Note: It was Orange Juice.] It was fun to get to know the girls more and to do some team bonding before the trip.
This plane was massive! (Airbus A380; biggest passenger plane in the world.) A lot of the girls that haven’t been overseas were surprised to see how big the plane was. We were all pretty tired when we sat down and a lot of us went right to sleep, but some stayed up and enjoyed the dinner that was served. Right away, we started to feel the culture of China with the dinner option of chicken or beef with rice. Luckily, there were a lot of movies and shows we could choose from during the flight when we weren’t sleeping. Most of us slept for nine or ten hours on the flight so it was nice to hear that we only had a couple hours when we woke up. As all of us were waking up, we noticed that our ankles were a bit swollen from the flight (and when I say a bit I mean very). It was nice that everyone was a sport about it and we all shared a laugh noticing how big our ankles really were. Soon after we woke up, we were served breakfast. We had a choice of an American breakfast, which consisted of eggs and potatoes, or shrimp and congee. Most of us chose the American breakfast.
As soon as we got off the plane in Guangzhou, China, we could feel the humidity already and it was actually hard to breathe. It was 4 in the morning when we arrived in China, and luckily our bodies were telling us it was morning. So I guess we could say we just woke up really early. There was no air conditioning in the airport so we tried to stay hydrated because we knew we would have a long day ahead of us. What we didn’t know is that there would be an hour-long line to get through security before we headed to the gate. When we finally reached our gate, we had a 2-hour layover before our next flight to Shanghai so we just relaxed and talked to each other until we boarded. Our next flight to Shanghai was about 3 hours, but we were all surprised when we got served lunch on the flight. Again, we had a choice of chicken and noodles (there’s going to be a lot of that) or a dumpling with seaweed. Both of the options had a cake that came with it. We were not going to pass on that!
It was 10:30 in the morning when we arrived in Shanghai. As soon as we got our bags, we changed into some new clothes before the long day ahead of us. As we loaded the bus to go do some site seeing, we saw McDonalds being brought to us! We all enjoyed a coke, Big Mac and fries as we drove through the heavy traffic. On the way to the market, we listened to a woman speak about the buildings in Shanghai, and we learned about New and Old Shanghai.
When we got to the market, Tim told us we had an hour and if we weren’t back in time, we would be left. So we split up into groups and tried not to get lost. It was interesting noticing how short the people actually were compared to us. They thought it was strange too because they kept taking pictures and asking us what sport we played. As we walked around the market area, we discovered more of the Chinese cuisine. There was chocolate covered grasshoppers, whole fish on a stick, a whole fried baby chicken on a stick, and chicken feet. How good does that sound? Everyone made it back to the bus safely, and we continued our journey to the streets of old and new Shanghai. There was a beautiful view that over looked the architecture of new Shanghai (“The Bund”), so we took a team picture and went back to the bus because we had to head to the train station. Most of us were exhausted on the train so we took a nap until we woke up an hour and a half later to get off at South Nanjing. At this point of the trip all of us were a bit overly tired and needed to use the bathroom after a long day of traveling. We were surprised when the toilets were basically holes in the ground and most of us knew that our legs would not allow us to squat that low. So most of the girls didn’t use the restroom. Needless to say, when we arrived in Huai’an after a 3 and a half hour bus ride, we needed an American toilet, and a shower! Before we could shower, we had dinner as a group. We had a lot of choices including, different types of pickled vegetables, soups, rice, and scary looking meat and to our surprise American French fries!
After a long day of traveling, our bodies were sore and tired and all we wanted was our beds! As we jumped on the beds, ready for what would seem like heaven, we were stunned at the response we got. The bed was stiff as a board. One my teammates, Kayla, thought they had used bricks from the Great Wall of China to make the bed. Luckily, we were that tired enough to where we could fall asleep instantly. All of us were very excited to get a good nights rest and to start practicing in China the next day.
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Post by BIP on Jun 18, 2013 22:18:23 GMT -5
BIP/USA Development Team, Update #3 June 18, Huai'an, China By Kelsey Snider, Colorado State University
Hello from China! My name is Kelsey Snider, and Day two was an adventure. Breakfast this morning was unlike anything I have ever had before. There were options that would be considered breakfast, like eggs. There were options that would be considered lunch, such as pot-stickers, and rice noodles. There even were options of cake, and flaky biscuits, which tasted like a cookie. After that, we went on an adventure and explored Huai'an. When we left the hotel, we had to either go right or left. We chose right thinking that that was the better option, but we ended up in what seemed like the slums of Huai'an. There were women that were wearing masks and puddles that smelled like sewer water. Along the way, we saw a mother teaching her little daughter, who looked like she was two years old, to wash the store windows. We stopped to say hello and take a picture, and they were nice enough to let us in. We walked around the store, and some of the team bought something from them. We took pictures with the mom, dad, little girl, and grandma. Once we left the store, we went to a supermarket, and they were not the greatest looking and it smelled gross. But they had water for cheap so that was exciting! We came back to the hotel, ate lunch, and got ready for practice. When we arrived at a practice, we saw the PAC-12 team finish their practice and after every time they did a floor move, they had to wipe their sweat. And soon we were going to experience that. When we started our practice, the volleyballs were wet and we were already sweating a lot. So when it came time for a water break, Sara (aka McLovin), went to go to the bathroom and completely wiped out because the floors were wet from the humidity. But don't worry, she was okay.
We trained for 2-hours, working mostly on transition offense and our blocking defense. Serve receive went pretty well, and we were in system a lot which let us really work on our offense. We'll be needing that against these teams. We bonded really well as a team and had a good practice. We seem to be coming together really well, which is important because we only have one more "pass-n'serve" (tomorrow) prior to getting started with matches.
By the end of practice, all of our shirts were soaked and we couldn't stop sweating. It felt like we had just jumped into a pool, some girls were even ringing their t-shirt out. Next came dinner with members of the Chinese government. At dinner, there were "snacks" on the table for us to eat. We would call these appetizers. A man from the Chinese government spoke and Mick Haley (PAC-12 Head Coach) spoke as well, and after they were done, the main courses started to be served. We had the choices of eel, tripe, pork, and vegetables, just to name a few. The government members would go around and make a toast at each table and we had to finish our wine. They did this about six times. They also had shots of a local "digestive" on the table for us, and let me tell you, it was the strongest thing I have ever had. Once dinner was through, the Chinese government members wanted us to sing and dance for them, and we happily did so. We did the Cha-Cha Slide, and sang Justin Beiber. Skye Gullat did step for them, and they loved it. And with that the dinner was over, and we came back to the hotel. Once we got back to the hotel, my teammates and I were still hungry so we decided to go get McDonalds. It was pretty far so we had to take a taxi there, but we were pretty sketched out by the actual taxis so we took a peddle bike with a cart attached to it. We ate food there, and managed to get our way back to the hotel safely. And that was the end to our day with hopefully more adventures to come.
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Post by StanfordFan on Jun 18, 2013 23:10:02 GMT -5
I live in China, and it's interesting to see the reactions of other Westerners when they first encounter China. Some can be pretty annoying, but these women seem open-minded and adventurous, which is great. One line I thought very odd was the fact that they were so much taller than everyone. With these women, I would think that would be true anywhere in the world they go. There aren't that many women who are 6' and taller. When I first moved to China, I expected to tower over everyone at 5'10", and it was a rude awakening when I arrived and realized that the young generation of Chinese (having received much better access to nutrition than prior generations) can be quite tall. I was the shortest guy in my office!
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Post by BIP on Jun 19, 2013 23:39:25 GMT -5
BIP/USA Development Team, Update #4 June 19, First Match Day in Huai'an, China By Lexi Ross, University of New Mexico
This morning was the first morning I was acclimated enough to Chinese time that I did not want to get out of bed. 8:30am is usually not early to rise but breakfast was calling our names. We ate our usual breakfast meal; easy eggs, a few flakey pastries, and toast accompanied with a cup of OJ or coffee. When you hear flakey pastry you may imagine something we may find in a bakery or coffee shop; crumbly, soft, maybe some sort of spread, cream, or jelly in/on it. Well, that is nothing like what we are eating here. It is more like they asked Google and came up with a hard cookie with a bland sugar cookie taste. It is good, but nothing like we have in America. After breakfast we had a serve and pass for about an hour back in the main gym, focusing mostly on blocking and passing. We played a little back court “queen-of-the-court” game to get our blood pumping and our bodies moving. This was a really nice way to start our competitive nature and prepare us for our game.
When we got back to the hotel we went and had lunch. Lunch was really good today. The cooks tried there hardest to accommodate to our American needs by making chicken wings. They were bland not with much flavor. But it was really great to eat something that tasted like I knew it should. There was also a chicken broth noodle dish that was also very good. It seems like the simpler the dish the better they taste, and when they try to go to fancy or combine too much, it overwhelms our team. I was very proud of Zan today though as she was one of the only people to try the pig-tongue, and given that it was pre-game meal, I give her extra props. After lunch our whole team went with our student translator “Chen” to Walmart and a local coffee shop. It was a really fun and interesting adventure. We road the transit bus there, where Alexis and Skye decided it was a good idea to leave the group and head to McDonald's. Chen was very frustrated since they did not tell him and just left, so he thought for a while he had lost them. We walked all the way there but by that time they had already left. So after calming Chen down and reassuring him that they can find the hotel we continued to Walmart. Once we got there we would as him what types of snacks were healthy and what they tasted like. We were hunting mostly for power bars but the Chinese not believe in them I guess because we could not find any. And since Chen could not figure out what we were trying to find we knew we were going to be out of luck. Most of the girls got crackers and different kinds of dried snacks, which Chen also pointed out that they were mostly given to preschoolers for school snacks and not may adults ate them here. We thought that this was funny but didn’t really care as it was food.
When we got back to the hotel we had a quick pre-game meal which was about the same as lunch and then headed to our match shortly after. Walking into the gym was really amazing. There were people packed everywhere we turned. Some group in matching outfits, others in jerseys, but most in regular street clothes. It was loud and really hot but a really great atmosphere to play in. We ended up losing 0-3 to the local favorites (Jiangsu) but had some really good plays. It looked like we were tying to hard to play rather then just letting our skills take over. But that is understandable for a first match ever playing together, let alone in another country. I think the next game will be a lot better and we learned a lot about the style of the Chinese and about ourselves as a unit.
We were bummed after the game because we all hate losing, but bounced back knowing that we have more opportunities to play the way we know how to play with this new family we have created. Every day this trip makes us more humble and grateful for the things we have waiting for us back in the States. A minute doesn’t go by when one of us is sharing a story about our family or friends, or how we can’t wait to share this experience with all of them when we get home. It is only the end of day three in China and we can’t wait to see what else it has to throw at us.
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Post by blocker on Jun 20, 2013 1:45:15 GMT -5
It's the Army Team and has nothing to do with the 81st division. August 1st is just the anniversary day of the Chinese Red Army and later Chinese People's Liberation Army. This team and its male counterpart represent china at Military World Games (in volleyball). Both teams have ranked high in the Chinese Volleyball League. A mis-translation. The team is a part of the 81st division of the Chinese army. They have been the tops in Chinese sports for years. People refer to them as Ba-yee team, or 8-1 team.
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Post by BIP on Jun 20, 2013 4:15:48 GMT -5
Match Updates, 6/19 Zhejiang 3:0 Pac-12 (25-22, 25-18, 25-14) Jiangsu 3:0 BIP/USA (25-20, 25-20, 25-14)
Match Updates, 6/20 Jiangsu 3:0 Pac-12 (28-26, 26-24, 25-16) Zhejiang 3:0 BIP/USA (25-18, 25-18, 25-11)
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Post by OptimusPrime on Jun 20, 2013 22:11:18 GMT -5
Its been a while since I've had to covert centimeters to feet and inches but something is wrong with these numbers 2.54 cm/in (exactly) And yes, something is wrong with (some of) those numbers. 5-9 = 175. 5-11 = 180. 5-5 = 165. Mike- I intended the statement to exuberate sarcasm! I failed again.
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