USA Select Team to Argentina
May 30 to June 11, 2006
Day 8 – June 7, 2006
By Kappy Lang (Tennessee Tech) - USA Select “Frosh” Team
Last night after we finished both matches in Villaguay we headed out for dinner at the usual hour of 12 or 1, meeting the Argentinean national team at the restaurant. We were eating dinner at the same place we had eaten lunch earlier that day and to our surprise there was a man singing karaoke for us! Of course he was singing in Spanish and we couldn’t understand a word of what he was singing, but we still had a lot of fun. There were the occasional English songs; Nikki got up at sang “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, along with some other random songs. When the Argentinean’s finally arrived they started getting into the songs by singing along, clapping, and even stomping their feet. A couple of our girls decided to get up and start a tango, which turned into a massive conga line. To sum it up, we had a good time at dinner.
We left this morning for Diamante arriving in the early afternoon giving us plenty of time to walk around and see the city. We played a local club that had two of the same girls from the team we played in Villaguay the night before. Every space we play in is completely different from the rest, so when we arrived tonight to play we immediately knew tonight would be a long match.
The gym was hot and humid which meant we would have a hard time moving around during the match. Everyone at some point in their careers must play through a match like this where simple routine tasks of even getting to the ball are made tough.
It’s a mental game and we didn’t rise to the challenge. It was a long grueling four game match where we ended up losing when we finally seemed to make the adjustments we needed to win.
Tomorrow is our last match, with everyone becoming healthy again after some bad food poisoning, I know we’ll all be ready and bring our A game.
Day 8 – June 7, 2006
By Katherine Whitney (Colorado State University) - USA Select “A” Team
This morning went as usual. Tim decided to let us sleep in (yay!) so after a small breakfast of croissants and café con leche at the hotel we got on the bus for a 3 hour trip to Diamonte, Entre Rios. When we got to Guia we ate lunch then had siesta time where we could walk around the city. Guia is similar to the other cities we’ve visited except that it’s next to a huge river. Some girls were feeling sick from they day before, so they slept while the rest of us walked around.
After our midday marienda we set off for the gym. It was really hot and muggy in the gym and at first we were having problems with the floor being slippery. We even warmed up running 2s in the middle because we didn’t know if we’d be able to transition fast enough because of the floor. We got the hang of it though and came out and won the first two games. They were both neck and neck until the end when we pulled ahead, winning 25-20 and 25-23.
The next two games did not go as well. I think our fatigue was starting to show a little bit (most of the girls weren’t feeling well). The third game seemed to be all Argentina as they came out to a 4-0 lead. Even though we started to limit our mistakes and tie the game up at 5-5, Argentina played a great set and came out with the win 25-19.
The 4th game was pretty close, but we couldn’t pull it out, losing 22-25, so it went to a 5th game. We came out strong and got to an early lead with some strong serving. It was 4-0 before they called a time out. They caught up to us in the middle of the game, and it was neck and neck until the end. Some key plays in the middle from KJ and Mandy kept us in it, and we pulled it out at the end, winning 19-17. The gym was completely packed and the fans were going crazy. It was great to finally win! Everyone’s pretty pumped, and after a good night’s sleep we’re hoping for a repeat tomorrow night!
Link to Official Argentinean FEVA Page
