All of the pictures taken this year are posted on our photo website http://lightsphotos.ifp3.com.
The 16-1's needed to win their final pool match to assure that they would advance out of their pool towards the Gold. The match was against Texas Tornados and NL easily won set 1. Set two was a battle all the way to about 18-18 and then Texas pulled away to win 25-20. The third set was a close game. It started out with Texas scoring the first 6 points and NL being down 6-1. NL came back to even it up at 6-6 and then Texas scored 2 quick ones to make it 6-8 Texas as we changed sides. The 16-1's once again came back to 8-8 and from there it was back and forth with the teams until the end when NL pulled out the win 15-13. This put them 2nd in their pool with an overall 5-2 record. They advanced to a Challenge match which was scheduled to play at 11am and we had just finished playing at 10:40am! So they marched over to the next court and started the next match against Wave from Southern California. The first rally was a great one with the ball going back and forth about 10 times before Wave terminated it. From that point on Wave was pretty much in control of the match. The 16-1's kept it close, but in the end Wave won the match in 2 sets. This puts the 16-1 team out of contention for the Gold. They will be playing in the Bronze bracket for 9th place starting on Saturday morning. This evening the 16-1's had a fun time in the Arcade winning lots of tickets that they converted to various prizes.
The 16-2's had a 3 team pool today with a crossover match afterwards. Their first match was against a team name Krewe. It was a match that afterwards Curt called "boring". The 16-2's easily won it in 2 sets. The second match of the 3 team pool was against a team from Puerto Rico Mava VB Rags. This match was a bit closer, but the 16-2's won it in two straight games also. This put them in 1st place in the pool and they would play a challenge match later in the evening to determine which final bracket they would end up in tomorrow. Their challenge match was against 951 Elite a team from Southern California. The first set was somewhat close at 25-22, but you never really felt that the 16-2's were going to lose it. In the second set the 16-2's dominated and won it 25-17. This puts the 16-2's in Flight 2 which will be playing for 25th position (the top of the bottom half). After the 16-2's finished play they went back to the hotel, cleaned up and went down to the Arcade to join the 16-1's playing some of the video games. They will play their final matches of the year on Saturday starting at 9am. Editors note: while the girls were having sandwiches for dinner, Curt, Andy & Jessica had a superb meal in the Napa Bistro.