USA v. Italy, June 19, 2009

FLORENCE, Italy - We are in the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence, Italy for the first of two World League matches. It's hot, and there is no A/C in Mr. Mandela's house, but I have always thought that conditions like this are synonymous with international volleyball.

I remember Americas' Cup in Sao Paolo, Brazil. It was summer in the US, but winter in Sao Paolo. It was very cold and there was no heat in the giant arena where we played. I was typing in the statistics and was having a hard time because my fingers were not working very well in the cold. The reserves did everything they could to stay warm including wrapping towels around themselves on the sidelines.

Great crowd at the start of the match. As you might expect the Italian crowd is lively and spontaneous. They aren't afraid to razz their own players. At 9-8 USA in the 2nd set one of their middles waffled the ball out of bounds on a quick attack. The crowd whistled, the coach called for a sub, out went that middle and the crowd cheered. At 25-25 in the 2nd Italy served the ball out and the crowd wanted the server's head.

The antennae on the net are made to take a beating. They get abused but don't break and rarely come off. Not so when Evan Patak (nicknamed "Tank"-as in Sherman) is hitting. He successfully hit both antennae off the net in warm ups, once on the left and once on the right. For Evan they would have to weld the antennae to the net-but then it would just snap in half.

Through the first set we were playing ok, but certainly not our best.

USA came up with some key stuff blocks which made a significant difference in the set. There were at least 4 or 5 plays that we could have made and Italy would have not scored beyond the 'teens.

The second set we may have played a little bit worse. With the exception of a couple of players the team on the floor for us is not young, but they are still developing the kind of chemistry that makes little things happen-the kind of plays that separate the top teams from the rest.

However, our team did make some plays at the end of the 2nd set to hold on for the win.

At 2-1 USA in the second set Donald Suxho accidently spit his gum out on the floor calling the ball "out". Fortunately the 10 Second Rule was in full effect.

We never really got anything going in the third set either. Never a great rhythm, but unlike the first match vs. Holland it had little to do with Italy. USA just couldn't put more than a couple of plays together at a time.

Jason Jablonsky (nickname: J Blo) came in for Anderson in the 3rd set and stayed in to start the 4th . USA finally got a good sideout rhythm and started making some plays. A tip that was on the line was played nicely by a diving Evan Patak, keeping the ball on our side. Suxho set Rooney a "40"-a back-row set to the right of center-that surprised Italy and went for a kill. Andy Hein played an overpass in the middle of the court then got up to hit a gap for a kill. David Lee kept the pressure on the Italians with some great jump-float serves and all of a sudden it was 14-7 USA. Italy made a couple of plays of their own to tighten the score, but USA maintained their level of play enough that it made it too tough for Italia.

Tomorrow we are off to Catania where we will play the second match vs. Italy on Sunday.

 View Rob's videos from Italy on YouTube.