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Day 8, June 15, 2005
Same teams, this time in Villaguay
By Tim Kelly
The girls are getting run ragged on this tour, and since most of them have either already written a journal or been hiding from me whenever it’s time to pick an author, I’ve decided that I should hammer this one out and just get it posted.
Today started off with some much needed free time, which I’m assuming most of the girls used to catch up on sleep in an actual bed. Departure was set for
12:15 and since the hotel was situated right in the center of Paraná’s main plaza, I hope that some of the girls got up and were able to sightsee and shop a little. The town was much cleaner and well kept than some of our past stops, and it looked like a great little place to hang out when we pulled in the day before.
Anyway, we loaded the bus and headed to lunch with the ARG delegation at the local club where we had played the night before. It was an empanada starter followed by some ravioli that clearly didn’t fill the girls up. This may have been the first meal where we could say that. I will neglect to mention that we all drove to McDonalds just after the meal in fear of offending our hosts. In any case, the meal saw our delegations mixing yet again, which I think is one of the greatest things about this tour.
So many of the tours we run in Europe see the teams bouncing in and out of a city without ever getting a chance to meet and bond with the locals or the opposing teams. On this trip, we’re eating 1-2 meals/day together over the course of 8 days, and even with the communication gap I think that some of the girls are forming some lasting friendships here. I sure hope so.
From our slightly embarrassing McStop it was about 2 hours on to the pueblo of Villaguay. We checked into our first non-4**** hotel and as usual, learned that our match was pushed back from 7:00 to 8:00. Thankfully the gym was 3 blocks away by foot, so the girls had the merienda and got ready for the games. The captains decided that we’d all head over together, so at 7:00pm (delayed to 7:15 by some local TV interviews with the coaches and staff) our evening officially started.
We got to the gym and knew that it would be a crazy night. I was informed that we’d be involved in "Laker’s Style" introductions including Roman Candles (which shot out fire and little Argentina flags), a lights show, and at least 100+ would-be-violations in a US courtroom. Needless to say the tiny gym 100+ was packed with locals including our first experience on this trip with drums. The local media was also out in force as I’m sure this was the first time that an official Argentinean National Team had an international match in this small town.
Kevin and Santiago’s "White Team" finally got their match started at about 8:15pm. The rest of us were praying for 2 things: A victory and a 3-game match. We got 1 of our wishes, and of the two I guess it was the most important. USA 3, Argentina 2.
The Youth Team from Argentina boasts several great 17-year-old players, so although we outmatch them in age, it’s a tough group to beat. Especially considering they’ve been together for year, are playing in the home country, and they’ve got a pretty serious goal of doing well in the World Championships in Macao in July. Their captain, #1 Yamila Nicetch, would start for most D1 programs in my mind, and has one of the best armswings I’ve seen. As usual, we had a ton of trouble handling her jump-serve, but otherwise this team really stepped up to get this victory. The thing that impressed me the most tonight was our blocking. Jessie Nevitt (Cincinnati) had 3 blocks Game 1 alone, Rachel Dyer (BYU) had 2 in the same game, and I think (we’ll get all official stats after the tour as the DataVolley guy that we’re travelling with doesn’t have a printer) we had at least 7 team blocks in that first game. It was a blocking clinic.
We had a little trouble stabilizing after the first game, but with limited substitutions and our brutal travel schedule this shouldn’t surprise anyone. The fact that they were able to hang in there for yet another 5-gamer is really a testament to how hard these girls are working on this tour. To date, the "White Team" has played 7 straight days of 5-Game matches! And with only 8 people on their roster!
After the first match, the packed house of ~900 was almost set on fire during the pre-game introductions for the "Big Event". The Roman Candles didn’t exactly go off exactly as planned, but in the end everyone was safe and sound. The clouds of sulfur lingered well into the first game, but at least they were keeping people from smoking tonight so it wasn’t all that bad on our lungs in the end.
Mark Rosen was happy to note that the team had another 11:00pm start time (we’re getting used to this you know) and we were under way. To be perfectly frank, I was about asleep on the bench on this point so I’m not going to be able to recount much of the match. How these girls manage to get out there and take swings every night is beyond me… Both teams came out pretty flat (surprising after the introductions they received, but not when you recall their schedule over the past day and week) but started getting into it once the drums got going. We did a good job of stopping their captain #8 Natalia Brussa (20 years old and already with two years experience in Italy under her belt) in the first set and came away with a win. Again, we were all praying for a 3-gamer and a victory, but this time we would lose both bets. Argentina 3, USA 1. My best memory of the night was Joanna Schmitt (Oklahoma) absolutely stuffing Miss Brussa straight down on the left side in Game 3. Props to Natalia though for getting her right back on the next play! Although they lost the match, I have to say it was great to see how this team is gelling. During the first few days they were having trouble handling free balls and now they’re really working as a team and look to be "in system" the majority of the time. Playing against the same team each night has also given them a chance to really work on stopping the better players across the net and working on our weaker rotations. I’m looking forward to great final match tomorrow in Sante Fe and hopefully we can have 2-0 night (maybe both in 3?) for the USA!
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