Hi Matt West Here!

We started to today off with an earlier wake up then we have had the past two days. We figured we need a little bit of serve and pass after the loss against Bulgaria last night. We woke up around 7:50 a.m. for breakfast at 8 a.m. Same breakfast as usual, everyone usually gets the Argentinian version of frosted flakes and different flavors of yogurt. It was weird to not be able to go back to bed after eating, but we dealt with it. After breakfast we hopped into the 20-person van to head to practice.

The day started off pretty hectic when the driver took a left on a solid red light and the tail of the van was almost crushed. But, besides that he got us to our facility in a record-time 25 minutes. The other driver got us there in an hour. Once we got to the facility we returned to the gym we once practiced at the night before, but when we got to Argentina little did we know that it was occupied with elite table tennis players competing to see who the best Argentinian table tennis player was. We soon after found another gym that we could use in the other facility and began our serve and pass. After the serve and pass we came back to the hotel again in record time and once we all reached our room… I'm pretty sure everyone passed out.

We had lunch at 1:30 p.m. so we all woke each other up and headed down to lunch, which consisted of pasta, pizza and chicken. After that we went to film study to prepare our for the Argentina match. Once we had finished film we headed back to our rooms to change and grab our gear and head out to the Argentina match.

We got to the gym 45 minutes before we were allowed to take the floor so, we just hung out in the locker room talking about the match and listening to music on one of the guy’s laptops (Cody Caldwell). Once we were able to take the floor we came in for a huddle and shout a primal USA before we ran out from the tunnel to take the floor. The crowd was roaring once we took the floor we all just took it in and came together again to use their energy to our advantage. Once the match started the fans were even crazier. Argentina's captain Gonzalo Quiroga had the match of his life against us. We managed to stop all the other hitters but him. He was very crafty, but also knew how to put the ball away in crunch time. It was unfortunate that we lost the match but I’m proud of the way we played especially in the third set. We did some good things out there today and I hope we can learn from this experience and carry on to the next round.

Wish us luck
-Matt West