Live Results
MADISON, Wis. -- Senior Lauren Carlini set the U.S. Women's National volleyball team to a 25-20, 25-19, 27-25 win over Peru on Saturday in the opening match of the Pan American Cup in Santo Dominigo, Dominican Republic. The starting setter for the U.S., Carlini had one kill and one block in the match.
The United States was lucky to pick up the win after their difficult travel from California to the Dominican Republic. In her second blog, Carlini writes about the seemingly endless delays the team went through on their trip.
The U.S. will take on Cuba on Monday in their second pool play match at 5 p.m. CT.
Welcome back everyone!
I'm going to be doing two blogs this week because there is enough to write a book on when it came to our travel issues. We had a few days of practice, followed by a ridiculously long day of traveling and dealing with flight problems, but first, last weekend.
This past weekend a few of the players decided to go to Newport Beach just to hang out, go to the beach, and get some good food. I must say, they have some great food in Southern California and every night a few of the players get together and choose somewhere to go. There was this pizza place called Pizza Press and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm a Chicago girl so I know my pizza and this place definitely was up to my standards!
Every morning we started practice at 8:30 a.m. but the setters would get there early and start getting reps at 8 a.m. We would go through warm ups, do some passing and serving drills, and then get into playing. So, there was lots of 6-vs-6 this week and it was great just to be able to let it all hang out and compete.
On Wednesday, we had to say goodbye to the players who did not make the team and it was pretty sad. It is cool to be able to bond and make relationships with people so quickly just by going through similar experiences and sharing your stories.
Thursday was our travel "day" and let me tell you, this day went downhill quick! First, we had to be on the bus to take us to LaX at 4:45 a.m. We got to the airport around 5:30 a.m. and proceeded to check in and get to our gate. I should have known it was going to be a long, rough day when we got breakfast at the airport and it took 40 minutes to get a breakfast sandwich. Anyways, we boarded the massive plane for our takeoff at 8 a.m. to Miami.
About an hour and a half into the flight, there is a call on the overhead speaker for any doctors, physicians, EMTs, anyone who had medical experience to please report to the back of the plane for a passenger who was feeling ill. At first it was no big deal, but the flight attendants started rushing around the cabin and passengers started getting antsy, wondering what was going on. About 45 minutes later we get the call that we are going to be making a medical emergency landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Alright, clearly it is pretty serious if we need to drop this man off. So, we land in the small New Mexico airport and wait for the emergency crew to take the man off the plane with an IV on a stretcher and we wait for the news.
The flight attendants then report that we had to make the landing for not just one, but two medical emergencies on board which was even more scary. The captain also said it is going to take a little time to reconfigure our flight plan and work around some bad weather so we just needed to hold tight while they figure a new path out.
After about an hour on the plane, we get more bad news. While landing (rather roughly I'll say) we managed to pop a tire, yes, pop a tire and it needed to be replaced. Okay wait, more bad news. The captain continued by saying that since planes that size don't typically land in this airport, they needed to fly a spare tire in from Dallas, and once a spare tire arrives, it will take two hours to jack the plane up and fix the tire.
Mind you, we had a connecting flight from Miami to the Dominican Republic which had a two-hour layover, so at the beginning of this whole fiasco we thought we could make it. But once the bad news fairy struck about the tire, we knew we were not going to be making it to the Dominican.
So, everyone unloads from the plane around 12:45 p.m. thinking that maybe we could be back on the plane and in the air around 3 p.m. Wishful thinking Lauren. The hours slowly clicked by, and the departure time kept increasing by two hours. For a while the designated departure time was going to be at 7:30 p.m. but then we found out around 6 p.m. by a very angry man screaming in the airport terminal that it had now been changed to 9 p.m. The plane that had our spare tire and the crew that would be fixing the tire had just left Dallas but had to turn around because they did not bring the equipment needed to get our baggage off the original plane if we needed to switch flights. This would put us in Miami at 3:15 a.m. EST.
Finally, around 10 p.m., we started making progress and they were saying we needed to start re-checking in and getting new boarding passes. But wait! We had to be boarded and on the plane by 11 p.m. or else the crew and pilot "timed out" and could no longer fly.
To say people were getting angry, agitated and irate would be an understatement. All I was thinking is "please let us get on this plane and actually take off, or else we are going to be in a bad situation." We get on board and finally take off from New Mexico at 11 pm. This put us into Miami at 4:20 a.m.
We got into Miami and had to rebook our flight to the Dominican Republic, so with 16 or so people trying to get on a flight this day, it was not easy and it took a while to figure out the logistics. We sat in the airport until 5:30 a.m. and found out we would not be getting our luggage.
At this point, no one even cared, let's just get to the hotel and get me to sleep! So, off to the temporary hotel and we were in bed by 6:30 a.m. I don't remember the last time I was awake for 24 straight hours but Thursday was that lucky day.
I slept for a few hours and woke up around 1 p.m. Our flight to the Dominican was rebooked for 6:15 p.m. and we would be getting in around 8:30 p.m. But wait! I'm not done yet! We can't fly directly into Santo Domingo as we were originally going to, so once we land at 8:30 we have to get our luggage and then take a four-hour car ride to our hotel. If this works out, then we will be at our hotel around 1 a.m. and up for serve and pass at 9 a.m. We originally had a practice planned for later on Friday but we just had to shake the cobwebs out quick on match day.
On the bright side, I got a ton of homework done and managed to finish a paper that is due this week! Honestly, although it kind of stinks that we were stranded in an airport for 11 hours, I managed to keep a pretty positive mindset. I'm usually such a worry bird and I get very stressed out about things like this but knowing that it was not in my control and people were taking care of it really helped with my mental health!
Honestly, the whole situation was kind of funny because it felt like Murphy's Law. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. But, we kept it light, stayed productive, and got through the day(s)! Plus, it is all about fighting through adversity and seeing what you do and how you perform when your back is against the wall. I can't wait to see how Team USA responds.
I will keep everyone updated on the matches this weekend, any other travel issues, and just how it is going down there! Thanks for reading!
GO USA! ALL IN!
