Brynn Carlson U.S. Women's Junior Team Blog
Jul 18, 2017 | Volleyball
K-State freshman outside hitter Brynn Carlson is currently training with the U.S. Women's Junior A1 team in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and will be writing about and sharing her experiences.
Hey Everyone! My name is Brynn Carlson and I am a freshman outside hitter here at K-State. I am currently training and playing with the USA Women’s Junior A1 team in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and will be writing quick recaps of my time here every couple of days! I am here training with 21 other volleyball players, so I have gotten the opportunity to meet and play with a lot of new girls playing at schools all over the US. While I am here we will be training for 5 days and playing a tournament for 5 days, and today was our third day of training. A typical day for us usually consists of two training sessions for about 6 hours total, and one classroom session that is about an hour. During our off times, we are usually napping or eating. Today in our classroom session, we talked about grit and perseverance, and during our training session we emphasized serve and pass, defense, and team systems. I’m looking forward to sharing more about my experiences with you, so don’t forget to check back soon for my next update!
Monday, July 17
Hi from Fort Lauderdale! Yesterday we split into teams and had two training sessions before heading out on an ocean sunset cruise for the evening. We took an excessive number of pictures (some of which are included with this post) and ate a nice scenic dinner overlooking the coast of Florida. Today was our fifth and final day of training, as well as the first day we got to sleep in! After 18 hours of practice in the first four days, we took it a bit easier today by only having one afternoon serve and pass training session and one classroom scouting session before getting the evening off to rest, or in my case, to do my personal finance homework. Tomorrow is our first day of tournament play as well as the opening ceremonies. We are starting off with a match in the afternoon followed by the opening ceremonies later tomorrow evening. If you would like to watch our matches, I have included the link to the schedule and the live stream for courts 1-4 below. My team name is USA Junior A1 Red. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to check back on Wednesday for my next update!
Friday, July 21
Today was our third day of play, and we are currently 5-0 in the tournament! On Tuesday, we got a huge surprise from Adidas (the new USA volleyball sponsors), when they unveiled the athlete lounge they created for us to hang out in during our off time. Inside the lounge, they had hair braiding station, snacks, ping pong, video games, a recovery station with Normatec machines and rollers, and a t-shirt design area. In addition, they gave us each our own personalized locker with a full outfit for each of us inside. After hanging out in the lounge for a few hours, we played our first match against New England, who we beat easily in three. After the match, we grabbed lunch, I got in a quick lift and then got ready for the opening ceremonies. At opening ceremonies, we all wore matching outfits (red shirts and khaki shorts) and got to hear a little bit about each delegation that sends teams to this tournament. The highlight was getting to see the New Zealand men’s team preform one of their traditional dances called the haka. After the ceremonies, Adidas threw us a black light party in the convention center complete with face painting, glow in the dark volleyball, a DJ, and even a 360 camera. It was super fun, but we made sure to leave early in order to get a good night of sleep so that we could get up in the morning and play Saskatchewan, followed by Team Canada in the afternoon, both of which we swept. Today we played a fellow USA team and Manitoba, and once again we swept both teams. During our off times, we have been spending a lot of time hanging out in the lounge and resting in the hotel! Friday we have another early morning, playing British Colombia at 7:30 am central time and then another USA team at 1:00pm central time, and both of the matches will be live streamed if you would like to watch!
Tuesday, May 26
Monday, April 27
Wednesday, April 01
Thursday, December 18
