Wednesday, July 2, 2008

An early start today as we have the 8a practice time on the competition floor.  B-fast at 7, bus at 7:20a.

Not sure I mentioned earlier, but there is NOTHING around our hotel other than a few sport federations and housing.  The hotel and connected buildings are surrounded by iron fence topped with barbed wire and there is a 24-guard at the entrance to the driveway to the complex.  There is typically at least one armed guard at the entrance to the hotel.  There is certainly no reason for anyone to leave the complex, but even if you wanted to, you probably couldn’t get out and there is nothing in walking distance.

We are fortunate to have about 10 English tv stations included NBC, CBS, HBO, Cinemax, AXN, and occasional English shows on a few other stations.

In today’s first match, Canada easily defeated the Dominican Republic 3-0 to wrap up 1st place in our pool.  In what most thought would be an easy win for Mexico over Guatemala in the 2nd match turned out to be not the case as Mexico had to go 5 sets before besting Guatemala and presumably finishing 2nd in the pull pending Cuba’s defeat of El Salvador in the last match of the evening.

Match Time

We start the same way as last night with Crider (S); Jaynes and Ellis (MB), Troy and Bourne (OH); Caldwell (OP) and Shoji (L). 

Game 1 is a marathon with neither team leading by more than 2 points the entire game.  USA had 7-8 serves to win the set, but couldn’t pull through and eventually loses 31-33.  Joe entered as a serving sub.

Game 2 starts the same way… back and forth.  We get a little momentum and actually serve for the set at 24-21, but they side out.  Their service ace pulls the score to 24-23.  They win the next rally to tie things at 24, but follow with a service error.  Their attack errors seals game one and squares the match at a set apiece. 

Then the rains came causing a delay in the match due to 3+ leaks in the roof over the court.  The delay lasted approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes.

We start the same way as in the previous 2 sets.  As usual, the teams trade 3 sideouts.

Oops – did I say 1 hour and 40 minutes?  With the score 2-1 USA, the rains and the leaky roof return for another delay of…….a day.  Per FIVB Regulations, if a delay such as a leak in the roof causes a delay of 4 hours, the match will be replayed from the start the next day.  So, at about 10:30p it was decided that we would reconvene at 8:30a to restart the match.  Cuba-El Salvador will play after our match.  This will mean that we will most likely play 2 matches on Thursday as the quarterfinals will be played at 5p & 7p.

Thursday, July 3,

Bus at 7a for both teams to eat a fast-food place on the way to the gym.  Due to traffic and slow service at “Biggest”, we were delayed in getting to the gym, so the start time was moved to 8:45a.

Both teams start the same way and the play of the match picked up right it was left off last night – tight, back-and-forth volleyball with very few points scored by the serving team.  Although we led by a narrow margin most of the game, we couldn’t finish it and ended up dropping set #1, 22-25.

Set #2 started the same and brought much of the same.  About halfway through the game, USA changed setters and brought in Joe K.  While Kasey wasn’t playing poorly, the change picked up the tempo of the offense and gave USA a slightly more formidable block.  The change worked as USA came back from being slightly down much of the game to salvage a 27-25 win.

Game 3 starts the same way except Joe is the setter.  Puerto Rico makes the first string of errors that we’ve seen from them in almost 12 hours of this match and USA prevails 25-18 to take a 2-1 set lead.

We’re the same in game 4.  We jump to an early lead, but PUR chips away and eventually ties the game at 19, but USA made a final push to prevail 25-22 and win the match 3-1.  The win places USA in 2nd place in the pool behind Canada and ahead of Dominican Republic (3rd) and Puerto Rico (4th).  Puerto Rico, the defending NORCECA champ in Boy’s Youth can not win this tournament.  This was the 1st time in 4 tries that the USA guys have beaten this Puerto Rican team since 2006.

We play Guatemala at 7p.  Mexico plays Dominican Republic in the 1st quarterfinal match at 5p.

More later.

Tom