The summer of 2005: I was pretty much done with volleyball tournaments. I was not going to play in a lot of them, only when the mood struck me. So at last count, I played in about 10 (I did lose count). One last place finish, two seconds and the rest wins. There goes my retirement plan.

The tournament with the best story is the AVP Hermosa. As the team seeded 32nd, my partner (Vero) and I got to play the 2004 Olympic gold medal winners, Misty May and Kerri Walsh first thing in the morning on center court. It would have been a better story to say that we won, but alas, that did not happen. However, the photographer, Ken Delgado, snapped a great picture of me digging Misty May. The ball went up and over the net, but just a little too close to Kerri, who promptly put it away. And I did get my bio on the AVP web site: Ilga's AVP Bio

The most exciting tournament was the one in Santa Barbara that Vero and I had to win in order to get a spot in the Hermosa AVP. We decided to go down to Santa Barbara at the last minute, just to play against some new teams. We did not expect to win. After all, we were seeded 13th and playing against teams that were competing almost every weekend to get into the AVP.

Also of note was the EVP (Extreme Volleyball Pros) tournament in Santa Cruz. Vero and I played a couple of French girls in the finals, one of which played on the national team (in France). The great thing about that tournament was that during the finals, the crowd was watching us, while the men on the other court had nary a soul in attendance.

The Seaside tournament was also fun, as usual. At the last minute I decided to go and play with my friend Jana. We played the finals on center court against Wendy Stammer (of the AVP) and Jill, who had a 3 month old baby, and just ran out of steam. And Kent and I got re-inducted into the hall of fame (for winning 10 tournaments). Kent hates that kind of attention, so Liana conveniently decided to take a nap during the ceremony, leaving me to represent both of us.

I cannot leave out mentioning the annual July 4th four person draw volleyball tournament and fish feed. The short guy on our team was 6’7”. Yeah, we won the tournament. Nothing makes for a better team than a good draw.

And my best come back of the year was in the Aspen Motherlode tournament. I played with Sue and we got into a 1-10 hole, after sitting for a few hours and starting the finals at dusk. However, I never doubted we would win, and we just kept chipping away to come back and win it 15-12. This was followed by an absolutely incredible abalone dinner in one of Aspen’s finest restaurants.

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