4-MAN TOURNEY BY MCK & SHARPEVISION
📸: @photothinkstudio
About 6 weeks ago Maddison McKibbin reached out to Kristen and asked if we would like to be a part of a 4-Man tournament that they were putting together. We immediately heard the word “competition” and couldn’t say yes fast enough. There was a lot of hype surrounding the entire event considering there were Olympians and top beach players headed to Austin, TX. This was a great location except that this booming city had the Formula 1 race in town. All the hotels, booked. All the ubers, lyfts, and taxis, nowhere to be found. The McKibbins along with Sharpevision solved this by flying us all in and putting us up in a house on Lake Travis, right outside of Austin. There were so many people drawn to Austin with sporting events that the city was quite literally full.
📸: @bryanmalloch
On Thursday night, after a delayed flight, we finally arrived in Austin and headed straight out to the lake house. We walked into the house to see most of the AVP players all just hanging out together. It was almost like a reality TV show. It was nice to finally get some time to get to know some of the other players. It’s very challenging to make connections at a tournament because you will probably see them across the net within a game or two. Some people want to be focused, some just want to chill, and you just don’t want to strike up a conversation while people are in between games. No one wants to get in the way of people getting into their “zone” before playing a game.
Kristen and I were the babies of the house so we thought it would be nice to get up and make breakfast for the house the first morning. We enjoy cooking and we couldn’t sleep in anymore. Waking up to the view of the lake and the boat on the lift got me up out of bed right away. People started slipping into the kitchen after the smell of bacon took over the house. I had to get down on the dock as soon as possible! I just sat there by the water drinking my coffee in my happy place. Little did I know everyone was coming down to the boat for a round of wake surfing. Of course, I did not pass up a boat ride. We went with Team Hawaii, all of which are surfers, so they absolutely crushed their first time wake surfing. There was no way I could compete with that, so I didn’t surf. However, being on the boat and watching couldn’t have been better. Later we drove into town with Geena and Karissa and waited two hours for some good ‘ole Texas BBQ. It was delicious but if you know me, I can get hangry. After two whole hours we were all getting to the hangry level, but we had great company and got to know some of the girls on tour a little more.
We got a quick practice in with Falyn, Kristen and me because our fourth, Corrine, didn’t fly in until later. I had never played quads before. Kristen had played quads a few times but nothing like the level of competition we were about to see. I had no idea what I was doing but I had been watching some videos the past week to try and envision it. Falyn was very confident in her knowledge of volleyball and coached us up a bit and we were ready to go. We showered and got ready for the player party at a cool place with games, lots of games. Great choice knowing we are all fierce competitors. We found our way on the pickle ball court and learned the rules of the game. I am now a huge fan of pickleball! Again, it was a great time to chat with other players outside the beach volleyball competition environment. On our way back there was yet another competition, who could play better music. Kristen was dying to play some of her own songs, while the rest of Team Hawaii was riding in perfect happiness listening to chill, island music. Kristen took it upon herself to queue up her own songs.
Woke up and it was game day! We fueled up with Troy and Chase on the men’s side, having breakfast with a great view of the lake and talking volleyball. There were some qualifier games before our match, so we went earlier to go watch and socialize. The venue was very cool. It was held at the MoonTower Saloon after the first venue had sold out within a day. They moved locations to accommodate for more people that were very angry they did not have a ticket. Tickets sold out within the day at that location too. There were people scattered everywhere around the court to watch the Texas teams take on the AVP teams. The first game we knew that we would have some things to figure out considering we had never practiced together and half of us had never really played in a quads tournament before. We all wanted to have fun but as soon as we get into competition mode, it is on! Everyone there wants to win. After we won our first game against a very good Sharpe Vision Texas team, we were onto the finals later that day. Shockingly enough, we had Texas BBQ and got to sit and watch great volleyball until we were up again five hours later. Those are the times that I treasure. We had so much down time to have great conversations, enjoy the athleticism on the court, meet new people, and enjoy the beautiful Texas weather.
After the three other semi games finished with men’s and women’s side, we were up! The lights were getting put up as the darkness was creeping in. Everyone that has ever played in the dark knows that seeing is yet another element that you must deal with. We were up against the other AVP team, with star, April Ross. She was absolutely killing us running up the middle and we lost the first set. Things started getting more and more intense and we had to change our game plan with coaches Falyn and Kristen we were set and took the second set. For the first and only time in the tournament, the game went to three. After both teams were crushing ball after ball, we found ourselves tied at 12-12. That’s anyone’s game. With a double block to finish we had won! Our first quads tournament was in the books, and we were given four big bottles of champagne.
Luckily, we had some practice in opening them. Note to self: do not spray Kristen directly in the eye and blind her after she had set our way to victory. It was a great time celebrating with some special people that we will get to see at each stop next year. We all sat and watched the men’s final to appreciate the trash talk and pure grind as they all wanted that victory so badly. After team Hawaii took the ‘W’ we were off to Kung Fu downtown Austin to celebrate. We all loaded in the party bus and took off. More time to compete, of course we picked a place loaded with games so our hyper competitive personalities could yet again compete. Yes, Kristen did beat me in arcade basketball. She took the win a little too serious and we decided to head home early. But overall, we all won. We had a great time in the house, on the court, on the boat, and in the party bus.
Sunday morning it was time for all of us to head out. Kristen and I spent a solid 30 minutes debating where we would go have breakfast/brunch (our favorite meal of the day) and go explore Austin a bit. However, all that time was useless. There were no ubers, no lyfts, no taxis, again. We luckily had a later flight so we weren’t worried about missing our flight but other people in the house were starting to get worried that they would. We all thought it would be a great idea to stuff eight giant people in an SUV and drive 1 hour to the airport with luggage until Geena came up with the brilliant idea to take the party bus! Thank goodness she did, we woke up our driver Maddison who was exhausted after throwing the event. He came walking out with a giant smile and very willing to drive us there! We waited at the airport for a couple hours, took a nap, and people watched until our delayed flight decided to finally get us home! THANK YOU MCKIBBIN BROTHERS. Lots of memories to be cherished! Hopefully there will be more to come!
By: Taryn Kloth
