Annalise Whitcomb looked out over the city lights emanating from a small village in the mountains. She and her teammates had taken a cable car to a nearby mountain, and that’s when it clicked.
It may not have clicked at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum or Lake Como but looking out over that view, she had found it.
She had found the Italy that she had always imagined.
“If you imagine Italy, I had imagined it with music and dancing and lights and that’s what it was,” she said. “It was peaceful and there was lots of music. It was so pretty up there and it was different than things we saw at other places.”
From July 5-18, Whitcomb and the Fort Scott Community College volleyball team made their way through Italy representing America on a invitation from Team USA.
When Whitcomb found out about the trip early this year while she was still a senior at Humboldt, deciding to go was a no-brainer.
Eighth current and eight former players made up two teams, each competing against three Italian teams.
The team of current players, including Whitcomb, went 2-1.
The teams that they faced were defensively gifted and older, according to Whitcomb, but didn’t have the offensive firepower to match Fort Scott.
“They were really hard workers on defense,” Whitcomb said. “They didn’t’ let the ball hit the ground. But we were better offensively so were able to kill the ball more which helped us win games.”
Greyhound head coach Lindsay Hill let her husband and her assistant coach preside over the two teams while she sat back as an observer.
“Our coach just got to watch us,” Whitcomb said. “She got to see what I had to offer. I saw that as very important. I got to make a little bit faster of a connection with people.”
After one of the matches, the team that they were playing invited FSCC’s players for a home-cooked Italian meal.
“It was really good,” Whitcomb said. “We had tons of pizza and pasta. That’s all they eat there.”
That wasn’t the only Italian culinary delight that Whitcomb got to experience.
“One of the best things was we got to eat gelato,” Whitcomb said. “We ate a lot of gelato.”
