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USA Jr A2 Women's Volleyball Team
Journal Entry #4, July 20, 2009
By Andrea Beck, incoming freshman, Wake Forest
We got up this morning at 7:00am to get ready for a full day of playing, so we started out with a quick breakfast and headed down to the gym for a 9:00am match against Falconara Juniors from Italy. We weren't really sure exactly what to expect as far as the level of play at this tournament, but I'm definitely glad that we played the Swiss team last week because it prepared us to play well together and to come in at a high level.
The match against the Italians was probably our best of the day, because we came out playing hard got to a 6-0 lead in the beginning. The biggest difference in playing them was that their game was a lot slower than ours, and it was hard to keep our offense quick and stay mentally focused on playing our best. We won the match 2-0, although we let up a little bit in game 2.
Our next match started at 12:30, so we had a little bit of time to hang out at the gym. We went to another court and watched the Croatians play, which was an exciting match. We also came back and watched some matches in the big gym, and had some time to talk while we watched. We were all a little exhausted, so it was hard to come back and play.
The match at 12:30 against OK Galeb was a little bit frustrating; we won the first game, but lost the second with a close score, even though it should have been over in two if we had played well. The third game was a little close in the middle, and some of us thought that we had won at 16-14 until we remembered that we play until 25 in the 3rd ... coach Eric subbed out our setter, Kristin Hoffman, thinking that we could but up a huge block to win the match, but then we realized that we were only half way there.
Afterwards, we came back for lunch and a nap, and just stayed in our rooms until we had to head over to the gym for a 5:30 match against the Croatian JNT. This match was better than the second, and we won 2-0, finishing off a pretty good day.
In general, we need to make sure to reduce the number of missed serves, but a lot of good things happened today. Ashley Bannister played very well and we tried to send the ball to her as much as possible on the right side because she can almost always put the ball away. She also gave us a huge block against their outside hitters. Jordan Meredith had a great day as well, especially in the last match, and had a lot of good kills from the outside. Maile Scarpino came in several times with good serves, and she brought a lot of energy to the floor.
The team is meshing well, and we went down to the beach when we finished, just to hang out and see the water. Hopefully tomorrow we will be just as successful. |
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