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Loading ...Ah Mow-Santos, Hakala earn top Swiss honors
By Cindy Luis
Posted On: April 7th, 2008 5:04PM
Thanks to Lauri for emailing the news. This is a photo of him, Coach Carl McGown and Matt Carere.
Former Hawaii volleyball All-Americans Robyn Ah Mow-Santos and Lauri Hakala were named the Swiss National League’s Players of the Year.
Ah Mow-Santos led her VBC Volero Zurich to the women’s title.
Hakala and former Warrior Matt Carere helped Lausanne Université Club to both the regular season, the Cup Championship and the overall league championship. LUC trailed 0-3 against TV Amriswil in the best-of-seven title series but rallied to win the final four matches.
Carere finished third in the men’s voting.
I cannot adequately capture Lauri’s enthusiasm. Here’s portions of the email:
The Season here in Switzerland is over. It has been the greatest both Matt’s Career and mine as well. Our team won the regular season, the Cup Championship and after long playoffs also the Swiss National League Championship. The so-called Double that is. 
We were down 0-3 in Matches against TV Amriswil in the Final Best of 7-Seires but we came back to win the title and the last 4 matches in a row! The last match was in our packed and very loud home gym.
Certainly one of the nicest and most memorable moments of my life.
Carl McGown did an AMAZING job with the team. Despite of the physical dominance that some other teams had over us, we were able to win it all and play consistantly. It wasnt easy but if it were, everybody would be doing it.
And last and the least… This came to me as a total surprise, but I got voted men’s player of the year.
It was won by one vote (the process made by the captains, club presidents and the coaches), the Brazilian opposite Alan Soares from TV Amriswil was second and Matt Carere was 3rd just one vote behind Soares. I can not believe it still because I thought I really was far from being the best individual. We just played nicely together with the boys… And they picked one from the winning team I guess.
Also the newcomer of the year and the best swiss player were from our team… so Lausanne Université Club really had a nice year. None of this would ve happen if it wasnt Carl McGown making us play so well together.
Aloha to You on the Islands, I will be there in a few weeks too for some surfing and summer school
http://www.tsr.ch/tsr/index.html?siteSect=800001&sid=8936827&mId=
Congrates to both ,always great to hear how they do after leaving us.
In addition I’d like to say this
There are times when I wished that you would use your blog like Reardon and Tasi. Every day they have bits of information that keeps the fans interested and engaged.Granted there is a lot more going on in football on a daily basis but right now we are in the middle of spring ball and NLI day tomorrow yet we get much of nothing.
Is it because there is no cooperation from the program with the press, are practices closed to the press ? It seems like we can get more inside information over at places like volleytalk that won’t show up either in your blog or the paper until weeks later.
This program doesn’t do a good job with public relations with the fan base after the season ends leaving much to rumor and speculation. In football guys like Reardon take care of that by giving us an inside look at what is going on in the off season and we need that in this sport.Wahine fans are hungry for information.
Here are few things that I think the fans would like to know and I would like too see on your blog.
Spring Practice
How are things looking in terms of getting it together will we be better than last year in Dave’s opinion ?
Any new injuries coming out of spring practice. ?
Anyone really standing out ?
How are Thomas and Lee doing.. have they been cleared to practice ?
Will they play any other teams before spring ball ends ?
The Schedule
Anything new on the WAC Tournament date problem ?
According to the schedule already provided to us there are open dates on Nov. 14th,26th,27th & 28th. Any teams filling these spots ?
Recruiting
This is an area that we all understand the sensitivity because of NCAA rules and coaches can’t say anything but that include reporters or anyone else with information because it is so common that reporters write about players being recruited.So who are we interested in for 09..can we expect any signings on NLI day ?
Blogs are about inside info,we need some on occasion.
Mahalo