Day 6

Game Day Costa Rica

Today I woke up about 8:30 a.m. for breakfast at 9 a.m. and a scouting report of Costa Rica with Rob. Our first match in the tournament portion of this tournament was going to be against them. They had finished third in the other pool, Pool A. From watching the film and seeing them play live, I knew that as long as we took care of the ball on our side we were going to be in pretty good shape.

In the meantime, the guys were doing a pool stretch with Lance. It was great for the guys to work some lactic acid after a grueling five gamer the night before. It's not like the pool is huge so there wasn't a lot of water left after they all got in.

We then met at 11 a.m. to watch the film from the night before and see what we needed to focus on. It was a good first team film session and the guys were really attentive, which is definitely important as we move forward. They were eager to see their mistakes, the good and get feedback. We went to lunch right after and then the guys had the rest of the afternoon off unless they wanted to come by and do some individual film sessions. We both had a few guys come by.

By the way, at lunch Lance decided to make a popsicle float with the popsicles they served at lunch and our three liter coke we get everyday. Rob just went with lime in his coke. We continue to be creative, as we stay here longer with our food items

At 3:30 p.m. we headed to Subway for a pre-match snack. They were pretty shocked when 12 giants came in. The funny thing is they ran out of bread with about three guys left, including me. But we waited for about 10 minutes and were able to get pretty good sandwiches. I think my chips tasted even better. After Subway we had a little more down time before we headed to match at 5:45 p.m..  Ken, Rob and I met to set the schedule for August when the guys come to train in San Diego. It will be really good to get some time too work on things before we head to Argentina.

Match time was upon us and our big focus was just to take care of the ball on our side and work to be disciplined on the small things to get better as a group.

The first game started off a little slow, but by the second game we were rolling. Scott went on some great serving runs and Josh was pretty solid out of the middle. We cruised to a three game victory. It was pretty neat that Costa Rican players wanted pictures after. This was a younger team then the U19 because that team was playing in a national team tournament for Costa Rica, so these guys were a little younger.

On the way out the guys got swarmed again to have their pictures taken by the fans. I even had a couple grab me. We always give the guys a few minutes and then I try to herd them out so we can make dinner.

Back at the hotel now and getting ready to do the scout report on Brazil. I want to get that done with Rob tonight so we are ready to go tomorrow. I am excited to play Brazil and I feel confident that we can beat them if we improve on our match from Mexico. It's a fantastic opportunity for us to get better against high-level competition.

Hasta mañana por la noche

Coach Friend