NOLA - THANK YOU

Jun 1

Louisiana, thank you thank you thank you! Words cannot begin to express just how thankful we are for the turnout this past weekend. When I was in high school, I went out and watched the AVP in New Orleans and dreamed about being out there one day… that became a reality this past weekend and y’all made it just that much sweeter. So again, from the bottom of my heart… thank you! Extended family, high school friends, old teammates, former coaches, you name it, and they were there. It was soo soo awesome to see everyone even if it was for a short second. If I had the time, I would have talked for hours with so many people but when it comes down to it – we are working, and my priority must be on performing.

I do think this is a hard balance at times especially when it is a home tournament. Taryn and I’s job (aka the way we make income) is by playing beach volleyball and we must be successful to make money. We’re like any other professional athlete – NBA, NFL, WNBA, NWSL, etc. Obviously, it’s on a much smaller scale – the difference is after an NBA player finishes a game, he walks into a locker room and away from everyone. While we absolutely LOVE getting to take pictures, sign autographs, and talk to people, there are also times when you want to just walk right into a locker room and breathe for a minute. So, I apologize if we did not get to take a pic or sign an autograph for you. Just know that we greatly appreciate the support and if we did not have time to thank you – THANK YOU!

Obviously, going into this tournament you want to win in front of the home crowd, so it creates a little more pressure. There was so much buzz going on, and that buzz just kept growing and growing with us winning in Austin and Turkey. Speaking of Turkey, we finished play Sunday night, got absolutely no sleep that night, and then embarked on a 22-hour travel day back home, so we had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to rest and recover before play started on Friday. On Tuesday, we woke up feeling the 8 matches that we played over 4 days in Turkey. We were also still on Turkey time and waking up around 5:30am is not necessarily good for the body. I would go to sleep each night saying in my head, “alright, you’re going to feel better tomorrow.” I would wake up the next morning and not necessarily feel better… the jet lag got me (it’s a real thing). I don’t think we had really felt it this bad. I was exhausted and my legs felt like an anchor weighing me down. To try and help with the recovery process, we went to Hotworx Tuesday morning and did a nice yoga session, and then headed to Baton Rouge to get a massage at Trifecta. On Wednesday we planned on getting a light practice in at Mango’s, but the weather had other plans. It was probably a sign that our bodies just needed more rest. Back to that buzz I was talking about – on Wednesday we had a handful of interviews leading into the tournament. Think I had my answer scripted by the 4th interview for the question, “what would it mean to come away with a win in your hometown?” It’s so exciting that the media was all over but again, it adds to that pressure. Since the weather was rough, we headed to back to NOLA to get groceries and get everything ready for Friday. On Thursday, we headed out to coconut for a light practice. When we got there, the courts were still in bad shape from the torrential downpour that had happened all Wednesday. We ended up practicing on a court that on one side was a swimming pool and on the other side was an indoor volleyball court. We practiced for around 20 or so minutes, and our feet never left the sand. We did a decent amount of serve receive and then Taryn did some transition setting, and we called it a day.

📸: Bryan Malloch The best support group!

On our way back to the house we of course saw some butterflies… I have made the drive from Coconut to my house a handful of times and have never noticed the butterfly sculpture when you make the right turn onto Power Blvd, but that day Taryn and I noticed it.

This tournament kind of had a different feel to it than most. We are always in a hotel room, but this time we were at our house in Metairie (about an 8 min drive from Coconut), we normally play sometime in the morning, but we played in the afternoon/evening, and we usually have to Uber everywhere, but we had my car to drive us around. Everything was just different. Regardless, we woke up Friday morning and it was GAMEDAY. Our first game was not until 6:25pm so we had ALL day to wonder what the crowd was going to be like. At around noon, Taryn and I were starting to get anxious, and it only grew when we started watching the other matches that started around 2. We peppered in the house (sorry mom and dad - we didn’t break anything), we did some work on the computer, and we watched some TV.

Around 5ish we headed to the courts, and you would never guess what we saw on the way. We pulled up to the red light right before you take a left and see Coconut and what do I look over and see… a license plate that is outlined in butterflies (really wish I would have taken a pic because at this point people may not believe us). Taryn said, “they are making their presence known that’s for sure.” It really does just make my heart so happy. We got to the courts and were instantly greeted with hugs and hellos from numerous people. We had to try and sneak away so we could go warmup. The first match was against someone very familiar to us, Kahlee York, our former teammate and who we trained with a ton post LSU. We knew especially that the crowd would be rocking since 75% of the people on the court were LSU Tigers. I tried to just soak everything in as I sat there in the player area on stadium court and looked out at the crowd before running out. Pretty cool experience and needless to say, there were definitely some jitters (more excitement than nervous I would say). You want to go out and perform well and give the crowd a good show. It’s hard to fight back thoughts like, “these people came here to watch us play, we need to make plays to entertain them.” It is hard to get those out of your head, but I think after the technical in the first set they started to subside, and all focus was on taking it point by point. We got through that game in two sets and before exiting the player area we could see that we were about to be swarmed with people. Jeff Conover, the tournament director, asked us if we needed security. I thought he was joking at first and said, “wait, you are being serious?” He was being dead serious. We declined since we knew pretty much all the people but that is just something that I never thought would come out of Jeff’s mouth. After a handful of interviews, pictures, and autographs we made our way the Trahan’s RV which they had so graciously drove there so we could have a place to relax with some AC in between games. It was very clutch!

Match 2 was a real late one – 9:45pm and it didn’t start until after 10 (I had been going to sleep the entire week before 10pm because of the jet lag). Quiggle/Schermerhorn were the opponents. They came out hot and we did not. We dropped the first set to the dismay of the large crowd gathered around court 2. Set 2 came around and we found ourselves down 13-8 at the technical timeout… not ideal. You could hear the crowd in the background after every point that did not go our way, “here we go, you got the next one.” When you have a handful of people telling you that, you almost want to be like shhhh but they were just trying to lift us up. When we came out of that technical timeout the crowd erupted. They were bringing the energy and it was time we reciprocated. Taryn went back to serve from the good side and the rest is history… we switched at 14-14. Pulled out the 2nd set victory and won the 3rd set 15-8. We had clinched a Sunday birth regardless of what happened on Saturday night.

By the time we got home and showered it was almost 1am, but we were able to sleep in since our next game was not until 8:35pm Saturday night. We decided we did not just want to sit around all day like we did on Friday, so we went and ran some errands. We hit Trader Joe’s for some groceries and then made our way to Tuesday Morning to get some simple syrups for our coffee. On the way to Tuesday Morning, we were stopped at a red light and Taryn looked to her left and says, “Kristen, look.” She pointed to this sign pictured to the right. I had to take a picture because it’s just so crazy!

We got back to the house, and I looked at my phone. I had received an Instagram message from a volleyball player from Norway asking us a question about the Jurmala, Latvia tournament. Taryn and I were confused because last we checked we were 10th on the reserve list. We thought there was no shot. Taryn booked a flight to go back home, and we were both planning on just having a week of chillness. Boy, did that change. We went and checked the list and bam, we were in the qualifier for an Elite 16 tournament. We were excited and torn all at the same time. Do we go? We were both looking forward to a little rest and recovery, but at the same time how could we pass up the opportunity to go play in an Elite 16. To try and decide what to do, we called Drew, went outside, and peppered, and went on a walk. The consensus was we could not pass up the opportunity and we would have a break after the tournament, so we booked our flights. If you are wondering what the cost looks like to book an international flight 2 days before it leaves and why sponsorships are so incredibly important for us to live out this dream… for both of our flights, it cost about $5,600 and that is just for flights (that was also the cheapest).

After about an hour after hearing the news, Drew messaged us and said get the flights booked but then focus in on the upcoming match. He was right, we had a game that would book a ticket to semifinals on the line and again it was against a familiar opponent Toni & Savvy. We were again slated to play on stadium court, and I knew a Saturday night in New Orleans meant a rowdy crowd. Everyone had all day to reach max drunkenness. The energy was electric to start the game and then suddenly absolute heart break. I set Taryn and looked across the net and saw that Toni hadn’t even run up to the net to block. Something was wrong. Toni immediately walked to her bench and knew something was wrong. I instantly got nauseated. Literally made me sick to my stomach. I think most people know and are amazed as to everything that Toni has overcome over the years and for this to happen again… again heart-breaking. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her. I know she will be back and stronger than ever. Not a doubt in my mind!

We went home that night and just could not stop saying to each other how heartbroken we were. Going to sleep that night was tough. Taryn texted me a “you up?” to which I replied yes. We met in the kitchen for a little snack and discussion about the night, and then made our way back into our rooms to try the whole sleep thing again. Went a little better this time.

Championship Sunday started a little different than most. We had to start packing for our Latvia trip. At this point, we are pretty good at it; however, after looking at the weather in Latvia we had to pack a little different. It’s supposed to be cold there. While packing we were keeping an eye out on our potential opponents which came out to be Stockman/Kraft. This was going to be our first match that was played during the lovely Louisiana heat. We have been traveling so much that we really have not trained in Louisiana a ton and we were feeling the heat. It was HOT. The first set went back and forth but we pulled it out in extra time 24-22. 2nd second went a little smoother and we were headed to the ship.

It was a quick turnaround between games. We had about an hour and a half to regroup, so we headed straight to the RV. We were able to rinse off all the sand in the shower and put on our fresh purple and gold and tiger strip swimsuits.

Go time. The crowd was rocking like it had been all weekend long and Mark Schuermann was getting them ready for first serve. Just like during that first match on the weekend, I sat under the umbrella just soaking it all in as best as I could. The first whistle blew and Kelly and Betsi put their foot on the gas. They were playing a flawless game. Every little touch went perfectly up, serves were hitting the end lines, and we were not playing very crisp. First set done. Taryn and I have been in worse situations, so we went out into the 2nd set unafraid. Again, Betsi & Kelly were as some might say “all gas, no brakes.” It was during the technical timeout which was at 13-8 that I came under the umbrella and said to Drew, “it’s impressive what they are doing out there.” It was also during that timeout which most of you saw in person or on TV that a butterfly came flying around us. I thought it was going to land on me. As soon as I saw that butterfly, I relaxed. During dinner later that evening with Taryn, I brought up that butterfly. I said, “Taryn, I have never really had this feeling and it is probably not good, but I knew we were going to lose that game and when that butterfly came flying over it relaxed me because I knew it was them up above saying that it was okay.” I was shocked when Taryn said that was her same exact feeling. It’s so crazy to me how that happens. As much as we both wanted to win that game, we were able to come to terms with it and be okay. Winning or losing is not end-all-be-all. Life will go on. There is a reason for everything and just like we said in all of our post-game interviews, we learn way more when we lose than when we win. So New Orleans, I am sorry we could not bring it home for you; however, I know it won’t be the last one in New Orleans! Till next time…