By: Michael Del Genio
In late December, the Dominican men’s volleyball team took a trip overseas to Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy to play top national and club teams in exhibition matches.
The trip comes at the idea of third-year head coach of the program, Doug Burchett, “It’s not very common for teams at the D3 level to take international trips. But, I always try to look for different opportunities as a selling point, and give these guys an amazing student-athlete experience.”
The trip came at no expense to Dominican University, as 100% of the trip came from fundraising and out of the athletes’ pockets. Senior libero and captain Tyler Vrska says, “We did the golf fundraiser. Set up courts throughout the area. Physical and manual labor for 12 hours a day, which was worth it. Some of it came out of our pockets. Chopped it down a lot to where it was absolutely worth it.”
Men’s volleyball initially landed in Croatia, where they stayed the night in Zagreb, the capital of the country, before moving to Ljubljana, Slovenia. In Ljubljana, the Stars took on their first challenge in the U18 Slovenia national team, followed by the U18 Croatia national team. In the midst of high competition, the Stars held their own, going down in four sets.
The experience wasn’t just on the court as a junior outside, Ty Geschke says, “we got into the cross culture with those players, three of the teams we played, we had dinner with. We got to talk to them, learn from them, we met a player from Slovenia who’s playing in the States…So it was cool to learn from her too because you would get her culture compared to our culture.”
The team then traveled to Venice, Bologna, and ended in Rome, where they would go on to compete against two professional Italian club teams, including Roma 7 Volley.
While in Italy, the team experienced New Year’s overseas. Vrska describes the experience, “We went to a city center, an outdoor concert venue, and there were lots of people, really interesting spending New Year’s in a different country.”
Despite going 0-4 against some of the best teams overseas has to offer, the trip helped prepare the Stars for the season ahead. Geschke affirms, “Mentally, it can be tough getting beat up on. There were positive areas where we would show some good strides and show improvement, or be close to beating the team, and show how well we can work together. Really going to prepare us for when we do play those high-level teams that are ranked in the nation. We’re going to be familiar, we’re not going to panic.”
Vrska agrees, saying, “I gained a lot of composure and confidence in myself. We were with each other 24/7 playing card games and hanging out. Our on-court chemistry was lacking, and now we have a lot of new connections.”
Coach Burchett now leads the team back in Chicago into the season opener at North Park University.
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