Serving notice at the Steamboat Doubles

Our thanks to Mike Nelson for this post on the highly successful road trip to the Steamboat Doubles Tournament.

The Steamboat Doubles is a very popular and respected tourney in Colorado. This year was reportedly the largest since the event began in 1981, with roughly 400 teams dispersed throughout the various divisions. The host town, Steamboat Springs, is located roughly 5 ½ hours east of Salt Lake along Highway 40. Steamboat is a fun little ski town that looks and feels a lot like Park City.

Joe Hillman and I were one of 24 teams in the Men’s Open Division and one of two teams from Wasatch Beach – the other being Derran Cannon and Matt Gordon. The Division also drew teams from Colorado, New Mexico and California. Joe and I arrived with a reputation among the Colorado crowd because of Joe’s 2nd place finish last year at Steamboat and my 9th place finish at the 2008 Motherlode Tourney in Aspen. As a result, we were seeded second and had a first round bye, giving us some time to relax and enjoy Steamboat Springs before we began play.

Matt, Derran, Mike and Joe at the Steamboat Doubles

We played our first match at approximately 4:45 p.m. on Saturday against Renny Werner and Brain Koistinen. We won in two games. Our second match was against Jake Paul and Jonny Chan; we also won that match in two straight. Interestingly, we played both of our matches on Saturday in the rain. We were pleased to know that it doesn’t rain just in Utah during volleyball season. We were also happy to have had experience in rain-volleyball to draw on, having played as many as 15 matches in the rain during Wasatch Beach tournaments this year.

Our first match on Sunday started at 11:30 a.m. against Dave Maitlen and Jon Stalls - the top Colorado team. Dave and Jon are very skilled defensive players; they didn’t let a ball drop without making a play on it. We were not used to their defense and had a tough time siding out. Nonetheless, we won game 1. Dave and Jon won game 2, and then we battled it out in the third game, ultimately winning 15-13. Our defensive play and fitness proved to be the deciding factors in this match. We had numerous rallies that were ultimately decided by great defensive play on either side of the net. Dave and Jon gave us our toughest match of the tourney and toughest match of the year. By the end, I was exhausted, sandy, and ready for a breather.

During our match with Dave and Jon on the bottom side of the bracket, Derran and Matt were battling it out with Jamey Martin and Mykolai Zerebeckyj on the top side of the bracket. Jamey and Mykolai were another of the strongest teams from Colorado and played very well. Derran and Matt beat them in a three-game thriller, a result of Matt’s blocking and Derran’s craftiness.

At the cross-over round of the tourney, Wasatch Beach was incredibly well represented with two of the four remaining teams. I heard many of the Colorado fans comment on how well the Utah teams played. The other two teams in the cross-over were Dave Maitlen & Jon Stolls and Vince Robbins & Adam Cabbage. We would have loved to have had an all-Utah final, but it didn’t work out that way. As the two sides of the bracket crossed over, we were matched against Derran and Matt in one semi-final.

Derran and Matt played tough against us, but we prevailed in two games. Dave and Jon beat Vince and Adam on the other side of the cross-over in a great three-game match. So, we were lined up in a rematch against Dave and Jon in the finals. We approached this match very differently from our first match, focusing on being aggressive. We served tougher, swung at a lot of balls and played really tough on defense. Joe was a blocking machine, forcing Dave and Jon into shooting instead of swinging. We worked hard to deny them any easy points. We won the first game and then got off to a great start in game two. We continued to play tough defense, and ended up winning the title in two games. It was really fun to match up against these guys not once but twice because they played such great ball.

Overall, the Steamboat Doubles tourney was an awesome experience and I look forward to playing again next year. The tournament was very well-run, which helped to make the experience fun both on and off the court. The Colorado players and fans were very respectful. They really appreciated the fact that the Wasatch Beach teams made the trip to the tournament. And winning it all certainly made the drive home seem a lot shorter.