Don't hét us 'cuz you ain't us

Sunday, April 10, the BRSE took on opponent Albrect VSC-Misi Miskolc at home, defeating them 3:0 in under one hour. After jumping on Miskolc (pronounced Meesh-kolts) in the first set, 25-9, we let up a little in the 2nd, winning by a much closer margin of 25-15. Finally regaining our composure, we put an end to the match with a 25-12 victory. According to some of my teammate's, the best player for Miskolc was sitting on the bench. We found out later that she had been skipping practices for the past few weeks, and that the coach was punishing her for doing so. Brava!

Side note: Miskolc was the 1st place team from the second volleyball league at the end of regular season, allowing them to move up to the first league for playoffs. The 8th place team from our league dropped down to the second league. Not sure if anyone remembers the wildcard playoff match that we, as the 7th place team from the 1st league, played in January/February against the 2nd place team (Kaposvar) from the 2nd league...but whatever, that determines who else moves within the two divisions. Clearly, we won, so HAZZAH! we stayed in the top league. Now back to the regularly scheduled entertainment...

Wednesday, April 13, we traveled almost 4 hours to the northeast part of Hungary, allowing me my first glimpse of the Hungarian mountains. The gym is crazy small, the roof is maybe 30' high, and the floor was super slick. Oh, and did I mention that the gym was FREEZING? Needless to say, these were perfect playing conditions! As most of you may know by now, our team tends to have frequent mental lapses--constantly varying between highs and lows throughout matches. Its fair to say that we never know which BRSE team will really show up. That said, we lost the first set 20-25. Miskolc's best hitter, who was benched on Sunday, was playing and definitely helped their team; however, we were able to pull it all together, winning the next three sets: 25-10, 27-25, 25-20. It should be said that the 1st and 3rd sets we played on the colder side of the gym, so its possible that the dramatic temperature drop slightly affected our play. Regardless, we came out victorious, securing the 7th place in Hungarian Women's Volleyball Extra Liga for the 2010-2011 season!!

For those of you who don't know, the number 7 in Hungarian is "hét" - pronounced "hate". Just in case you were wondering.