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By Jeff Nelson
Head Coach, New Mexico Volleyball
It is very exciting this week as we prepare to fly to Brisbane, Australia on Saturday. The trip has been several months in the planning and fundraising. Pauline has done a lot of work to prepare to share her homeland with our players and staff. I could not be more excited to close out our week of training and head to the airport for our adventure.
Training has been very good this week. The biggest thing we have had to adapt to is the International Ball. It is harder and seems to move quite a bit more. The team has worked very hard and really is playing quite well for having been in Beach season until three weeks ago.
The trip will consist of nearly a week in Queensland where it is warmer…nice!…and then about a week in Melbourne where it is more like fall right now. In Queensland we will play two matches and have a Beach Day. We will also be doing a clinic. When we head South to Melbourne we will be playing matches vs three National Teams. We will play New Zealand, Australia and Croatia. The teams we are playing are in Australia training for another event so it will be great to play some high level competition.
I will spend my last couple days here getting ready, getting packed and getting really excited for what promises to be an awesome time! We are meeting Pauline over there as she is getting things organized on that end. JJ and Kate will be the other staff members making the trip.
Another really exciting part of this trip will be meeting with several alums of UNM Volleyball, while we are there. Over the years there have been a number of Aussies that have played for the Lobos. It has been a great pipeline for our program, so it will be fun to meet some of these folks.
What a great spring it has been for all of our players. Great training for the indoor kids and our first full schedule for Beach in which the team did really well! Capping it all off with an amazing trip to really the other side of the Earth. We will cross the International Date Line and lose a day…will we ever get it back? Our flight begins in the Q on Saturday May 21. We will fly to LAX Los Angeles and then board a plane for a 14-hour flight to Brisbane. We were very lucky to get a direct flight. A long haul and everyone has different ideas for coping with it.
Please keep up on the trip by looking at our Daily Blog which will be done by a different player and or member of our party every day. We will try to include some pictures each day, as well.
Adios and thank you to the many awesome folks who have helped make this possible.
Fans can follow the team’s Facebook page (University of New Mexico Volleyball) and Twitter (@UNMVolley) to keep track of the Lobos during their trip.