lauren bertolacci

We are five games into the season and still with no wins. Not as big a disaster as it sounds, we have played some pretty good teams. This week we are up against Annas team Muenster. They also haven’t won a match, so its pretty desperate times for both sides. Heres a few pics and a bit of commentary on each match so far.

VCO Berlin

They are a Junior Academy Team. They have won a few games already, some massive surprises. Plus we lost an outside to an ACL this game, wasn’t the best season opener for us.

Hamburg

Our first away game. These guys have lost no games so far and are playing pretty good volleyball. We had an up and down game, it ended well, we lost in 3 but started to play some good points at the end. It was the first game our second setter was libero (meniscus) she did a really good job for us, but still had no settled lineup.

 Schwerin

Second away game , we had played them in pre season and taken sets off them and this is what we expected to do. We had a pretty frustrating game and couldnt quite finish points and lost 3-0. Although we had played some good teams not winning a set for three games makes it hard! No pics from this one cos it was away.

Koepenick

Our second home game. These guys have actually only lost one game until now, but still a team that if we played a really good game against, we can beat. We did play a really good game, and it got to 15-16 in the fifth, we overpassed, I jumped, blocked the ball and the net ref whistled me for a net touch….AHHH. I definitely was not in the net…and thats a big point to call that on. Frustrating way to end a good game that would have been bonus points for us.

Dresden

Our third away game, they are only 45 mins away from us. Was a Sachsen Derby…they are a very good team, vice champs last yr, winners the yr before, should have probably rolled us 3-0 pretty quick, but we played the best game we have yet in front of 2500 people, and took the third set. The second was oh so close and we had a few set points too, it was good that we didnt die in the third and kept up our game. Was our best game so far and a good one to end it on and prepare for this weeks match against Anna! Wish me luck.

OK…it’s been a very long preseason but it looks like it is finally over. We have our first real season game this weekend against Berlin. We’ve had a massive schedule and played a lot of games. On Sunday we played a cup match against Stuttgart at home, we lost in four. We played a pretty inconsistent match, there were some highlights, but generally it was pretty nervous and shaky in front of our home crowd. Hopefully all that is out of the way for this weekends game, it is a chance for us to start the season off well and get a win. Here are a couple of pics from our match against Stuttgart… I’ll post more after our game Saturday!

I am back in Germany in the sunshine after a very long weekend. I am going to try and give a picture commentary….writing is too difficult as I still can’t move my arms. We had AVL finals last weekend. We started off with a danger game against QLD. We won in 4 and played some of the best volleyball we had in a while.

someone needs to teach me how to defend the line apparently…

This bought us to the next round, we had to beat SA to get through to the final. They shocked us big time in the first two sets and completely demolished us and our game plan playing the smoothest volleyball they have all season. We got our shit together halfway through the third, almost left it too late and won a thriller in 5. It was without a doubt the biggest come back I have played in, and one of the most exciting. It was great to win, and you can see from the celebration reaction in this last picture!

I take full credit for the lack of block right here!

biggest comeback of my career….biggest celebration too as you can see. massive pity we didn’t follow it up.

So we were in the final….won the first, lost the second, won the third, lost the fourth and lost the fifth in a tight one. I don’t really want to talk too much about the match. Too much went on and the loss still hurts a bit. Heres some pics.

Hynes going bang…

not overly happy in this one…

Before I move on I want to make two special mentions from this weekend. Tarsh…who played the best volleyball I have ever seen from her…absolute killer on the slide attack. Watch out for Karley Hynes, she had a great finals weekend…massive young talent with a volleyball brain and power, hard to beat.

You would think the weekend would be over, thoroughly exhausted by now however it was far from over. We had an extremely tough camp, great for team building and a good lead up for the comps to come. I still can’t move my arms from some of it, they feel like straw. It was good to get together with the squad, a lot of who I have never played with or trained with before…Sam Simmonds being one of these, plays in the States and unfortunately for South Australia, was good to set some balls to her and touch base. Good to finally get everyone together.

Sammy getting tooled for sure…

I arrived in Germany with Rhi, it’s 31 degrees today, we rode on a boatcycle (our name for it, unsure of the German trasnlation) and strolled around. Tomorrow more strolling, brekky at a nice cafe, maybe head to the pool and the gym, and catch up with some of the team tomorrow night. Training starts Monday.

on the boat cycle….chasing some ducks…catching some rays. Day 1 done!

There is a lot going on at the end of this week. We head off for finals for AVL on Friday morning and kick off with a big game against Queensland on Friday night. This is a must win game to progress into the final. Thats all we are thinking about to start. Its going to be a tough weekend and we have to pull out a lot of good volleyball to get to the final, and repeat what we did last year. I hope everyone back in Victoria has their fingers crossed for us, we are going to need the support. It feels like AVL hasn’t been as well supported this year, or there hasn’t been as big a buzz, which is unfortunate because in Adelaide in the last round, I thought the quality of matches was as good as I have ever seen in Aus, and it is only going to get better. There are a lot of awesome juniors coming through and filling up the teams, and adding a lot of depth, we have our fair share of those and it is great. I hope, actually I think AVL will continue to improve and the standard will get better and better, hopefully from there we can get some sponsors and cut the cost down a little, especially for some of the other states, as we seem pretty well supported.

Finals finish on Sunday, and National Team Camp starts on Monday. We have two days of training, with hopefully a very large portion of the full squad to prepare for a few tournaments we have later in the year.

I leave on the Wednesday from Sydney straight back to Germany, taking Rhi with me. I can’t wait to get stuck into pre-season training and back into another season. So as of Friday it is a pretty full on schedule until I arrive in Chemnitz, where I have two days off before starting training. I think I am going to need those two days! Keep your fingers crossed for Uni Blues, we are hoping to bring back the gold, but it is going to be a very tough weekend.

The guys at Ascend Sports Nutrition have been helping me out since I got home from Germany. For those not up with Sports Science, protein supplements are used by elite athletes around the world in order to help them recover faster and build and maintain muscle. Sports nutrition is an essential part of training and recovery, and one I find can often be neglected in Volleyball. When I got home from Germany I was still recovering from a torn hip flexor that I was struggling to shake, and had an ankle injury within a week of getting home, and I have no doubt using the recovery and protein catalyst product from Ascend helped me get through those a lot quicker than normal.

Protein supplementation is important for after games, training and weight session and it provides numerous benefits. When you exercise you stimulate protein synthesis, and you need a surplus of protein in order to help repair the muscle damage that you caused. When you repair you adapt, grow and get stronger…you also reduce soreness and inflammation. Ascend have created a world first product after dicovering a new whey peptide, designed to help you recover and adapt in a very short amount of time, and it is proven. Here is a small snippet from their website.

ASCEND Elite Recovery ultra active whey peptide accelerates your strength recovery after exercise. In clinical studies, subjects achieved full strength recovery within a staggering 24-hour period after they had exercised to fatigue. These recovery times are unheard of! Train Harder More Often.

I’m not going to talk too much about the science behind it on here but you can read more about the clinical trials and details of the recovery product here. Science behind Ascend.

I just wanted to let everybody know about these guys as they are relatively new, and a big step ahead of their competition. They have been helping me out since I got home and I can feel the difference. With tough schedules for AVL, it’s making a difference, and when I head back to Germany I intend to keep on using their products to help me recover and train harder.

I’m back from the tournament in Abu Dhabi, it was a great experience for us. It’s so valuable to be able to play against European teams. It suits our game much more and it shows us what we can do and can achieve.

Now we have the Perth AVL round, where we are going to try to improve on our last effort of 2 wins and 2 losses.

I’ve been watching the boys play in the Olympic Qualifier, it’s not often I get to see them and they are doing really well. Fingers crossed for them, they have a lot of support back here!

Here is some video from our Sydney game…we lost in 5, very disappointing but it was a quality game.

some video from WA game, we won in five.

check out more here

Highlights from our match against Queensland.

A bit of an update seeing as I have settled down at home again. I have been training for AVL and we start this weekend. The first round is in Melbourne and we hope to put on a good show at home. We have four games this weekend, from Friday through to Sunday, and then I fly out on Monday with the national team to compete in Dubai. This tournament is against some unbelievable teams and it is going to be a very good experience for all of us. Thats it for now, cross your fingers for this weekend, we were champions last year and hope to repeat that, but it will be tougher this year as the other teams seem to have done some catching up! I hope to see a few people out there supporting us.