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Day 9, June 16, 2005
USA "White" (Kevin/Santiago’s Team) vs. ARG YNT in San Carlos
By Kevin Hambly, University of Illinois
 The morning of our last day of competition started pretty similarly to most days. Breakfast, which consisted of a strong cup of coffee and stale bread, and then a bus ride on the luxurious "Crucero del Norte" to the next city. We had a short trip into the city of Santa Fe which gave us time to walk around the town, have some lunch, and do some shopping. It was nice to have a few hours to sightsee and stretch our legs before the match.
We left for the match at 5:00 PM and only had a forty-five minute drive to San Carlos where our final competition was to be held.
It’s nice to pull into a new city and meet the new faces and feel the excitement in their handshakes and smiles. It can easily go unnoticed on trips like this where you are in a new place every night. We have already traveled and played five times in different gyms and with new fans before this night. It usually takes a subtle reminder of signing an autograph or taking a picture to get me back to realize how genuinely happy the people are that we are there.
Everyone we have met has treated us with hospitality and respect and really seemed to appreciate and tried to take advantage of the opportunity to not only have their National Team play in their gym and city but to get to meet people from a different culture. It has been a wonderful experience. And although I am ready to go home and see my wife, I feel fortunate and want to thank to the Argentina federation, the Argentinean people and Tim/BIP for this opportunity.
We were supposed to start our match at 8:00pm, but of course it started at its customary fashionably late time of 8:45pm. The crowd for our match was at about ninety-five percent capacity. They weren’t as loud as the night before, but it was an exciting environment nonetheless. Most of our players have probably not been fortunate enough to compete in an environment like the gyms in which we have been able to compete this week.
Game 1: The first game started very similarly to most of the games the last few nights, with both teams feeling each other out and trying to find their rhythm. By the first technical timeout we had a good feel for our offense and seemed to be in a good rhythm, the score was 8-7. Out of the technical timeout we went an outstanding defensive run scoring 3 straight points. The run started with some very good defense and transition. We started to put more pressure on them with our serves as we gained some confidence. We had a lead of 16-10 at the second technical timeout and seemed to be in good control of the first game. Coming out of the second technical timeout Argentina came out with a greater sense of urgency and we had some difficulty matching their intensity. They made a run of a couple of points and then we would sideout, another little run and then a sideout. They slowly nipped away at our lead and pushed the score from 19-14 to 20-16 to 22-20 and finally to 23-22. We sided-out which gave us game-point at 24-22 but a sideout and an ace made the score deuce. Both teams battled very hard, each team having a chance to win the game several times, but finally in the end Argentina won 28-26.
Game 2: The tough loss in the first game made it a little difficult to get going in the second and Argentina took early leads at 4-1 and 7-3. Due to a block and an Argentina hitting error we reached the first technical timeout at 6-8. Both teams played sloppily but even up to the second technical timeout, the score was 14-16. The Argentinean lead stayed basically the same as we traded sideout after sideout, until the score was 21-23. We then had a very nice block cutting the lead to one. The teams traded sideouts, with our team surviving a game point. At 23-24, Santiago gave Rachel Dyer the green light to go for her jump serve. She stepped up with confidence and ripped off an ace, tying the score at 24-24. After a missed serve on her second attempt we were facing a third game point with their best server on the service line. She hit a nice floater and got us out of system. Unfortunately we made a hitting error to lose 24-26.
Game 3: Down 0-2 and demoralized by the end of the last game we came out played pretty sloppy and uninspired. The Argentineans sensing weakness gained some confidence and played extremely well. Unfortunately, we got down early and our attempts at any kind of comeback were stopped quickly by the Argentineans.
We lost 15-25 (0-3).
I know that we were all upset with the result of the last match and feel we could have performed at a higher level. But we fought hard until the end and it was just unfortunate we could not get it together and somehow get the match to a five-gamer. It would have been our eighth straight five-game-match and I think both teams just assumed this match would end up that way.
This experience has been a great one for me. It is very interesting to watch a group of players come together as a team in such a short time. Not only on the court but the bonds they make off the court. The amount of time that the players spend together seems to really speed up the process of becoming loyal to one another and gaining the much-needed trust they need to play together. I personally learned a lot from this experience and a lot from the players I was lucky enough to work with. I want to thank them for that and the way they responded to Santiago and I, not to mention the way that they handled the travel and the distraction that we were forced to face. I hope they got half what I did out of this experience.
The opportunity to travel with the coaching staff (Tom Hilbert, Mark Rosen, and Santiago Restrepo) and spend hours on the bus talking about life and volleyball has made the 6-hour bus trips and the late nights more then worth it. I have looked forward to each trip curious to see where the conversation will lead. All in all this has been a great experience and I look forward to the next tour with BIP.
Day 9, June 16, 2005
USA "Red" (Tom and Mark’s Team) vs. ARG National "B" Team in San Carlos
By Tom Hilbert (Colorado State University Head Coach)
 We knew tonight’s match would be different than the previous ones. San Carlos was the hometown of three of the Argentinean players including Natalia Brussa, the top player on their National B Team and a usual member of the "A" Squad. She is an outside hitter who would be a first team All-American in the NCAA. We told the players she would bring her "A-Game" tonight and she did. In the pre-match presentation she was honored by the fans, and they continued to applaud her as she bombed balls at us from the opposite position.
We stayed in the match, winning games two and four but game five was all Argentina. They started off with an 8 point run and ended with some of the best serving we saw from Natalia. The game was over in five rotations. We had been in a war with Natalia all week and she fired the final shot with a kill from the back row.
We stayed at the club for the post game meal, barbecued chicken, which we could smell before the match ended. We sat and watched how our players on the trip had changed. They were interacting with the Argentineans on their own now. They had developed an appreciation for what they had been through and how two very different cultures can be brought together by sport.
When the tour started none of us really knew what to expect. Since then we had seen volleyball-communities all over the northern part of this country filled with locals, banging drums, chanting and singing. We saw the townspeople of San Francisco cheer us after waiting two hours for our late arrival. We watched an official call a replay because of a dog on the court and played through the smoke of an indoor fireworks show. We ate great food, met the most hospitable people and saw a country most of us had never seen. To top it off, the players experienced all of this while playing on a new team; people who they had never played with before and may never again. But they will always have this shared experience.
One of the greatest things I saw tonight relates to something we saw earlier in the week. During a time out in the Cordoba match one of the Argentinean players was wearing a kneepad that was so old and stretched out that her teammates were taping it to her leg. This was so hard to believe since college athletes in the United States literally get whatever they need whenever they need it. Tonight all of the USA Select players took off shoes, kneepads and T-shirts and put them in a big bag for the Argentineans. It may seem strange that they would appreciate used equipment but they really need it and they were very happy to get this offering. The Argentineans traded some of their gear and everyone felt great about it. I wish I had brought all the excess gear that has been sitting in our equipment room for years.
It makes you realize that all the money and glamour and attention that college athletics gets in the USA doesn’t make us love the game any more or play it at a higher level. These young ladies love volleyball as much as we do and play the game with so much passion. Maybe that is the greatest lesson we can take away from this tour.
Red Team Wrap-Up
By Mark Rosen, University of Michigan
 It would be easy to fill this journal entry with the countless events and activities that took place throughout this tour but I am confident that most of those experiences have already been documented in past entries. I prefer to look back on the entire trip as one large experience that has shaped us all in one way or another.
The past 10 days has been such an interesting and rewarding experience for all involved. It hasn’t all been easy but it certainly has been educational. One of the greatest things about it has been that each individual has gotten something different from the opportunity. Each player has been tested in ways that they could never have experienced in the "perfect" environment of college volleyball in the United States. We typically play in beautiful facilities with all of the modern conveniences possible. We have the latest equipment and play at ideal match times in front of supportive fans and family members. None of those qualities existed over the past 10 days and I can’t think of a better teacher for all of us than that.
It has been an awesome experience to see a group of good college players from a variety of programs across the country develop into a "team" in every sense of the word. They learned not only how to play together but how to win together, lose together and live together. I’ve always said that one of the most rewarding parts of my job as a coach is to see how much my players grow over the course of their college careers. This tour has certainly been a condensed version of that. Even though I have only known the majority of these players for less than two weeks I am very proud of the strides that they have taken as players and as people.
It will be interesting to see how each player and coach will apply this tour’s experiences in their upcoming season. I think we will all appreciate the standard starting time of 7:00pm matches and the fact that a typical week brings 2 or 3 matches at the most. I hope that we all appreciate the facilities, equipment and support that each of our programs provides us with.
One aspect that I hope we will all take forward from this trip is the level of respect and camaraderie that we developed with the Argentinean players and coaches. It was a unique opportunity to play the same opponent for eight straight matches. In our training matches at the beginning of the tour our players had the typical rival mentality that would not let them "like" their adversary. By the end of the trip our players transformed into much more mature competitors that could put all of their efforts into beating someone but at the same time respect and enjoy them. Last night’s match was a prime example. Our players competed well throughout the match just falling short in the fifth set but when it was over they shared a wonderful celebration of the tour with the Argentinean players.
Overall, this was a wonderful experience that we will all benefit greatly from. I look forward to crossing paths with many of the players and coaches over the next few seasons. I only wish that all of my players at Michigan had the opportunity that we all just experienced.
Cerrando Todo En Español…
Por Santiago Restrepo, Universidad de Oklahoma
 Primero que todo, quería agradecerles y decirles mil gracias a toda la gente de las ciudades que visitamos: Buenos Aires, Rio Cuarto, Cordoba, San Francisco, Parana, San Carlos, y Villaguay. Yo, Santiago Restrepo, como latino y Colombiano, he pasado lo mejor en cualquier pais que he visitado en Suramerica.
Argentina definitivamente tiene la mejor gente y comida, y las amistades que he hecho y que las niñas de EEUU han hecho nunca se van a olvidar. Principalmente quiero agradecerles a Guillermo, Horacio, y Oscar por atendernos lo maximo que he visto en mi vida. Son definativamente unos profesionales y las chicas de la seleccion de Argentina debería estar muy contentas que ellos esten trabajando por la seleccion. Ellos son los mejores representantes de su pais. Yo le recomendaría el viaje a Argentina a cualquier univerisdad o equipo de los Estados Unidos porque tiene una tierra muy linda y son amistosos. Muchas gracias por todo.
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