July 26, 2011

Kelly Reeves

WOW!!! All I got to say is what an UNBELIEVABLE DAY!

To start with, we ate our usual 9 a.m. breakfast that included the delicious scrambled eggs and bread. We literally eat the exact same thing for every meal. After breakfast, the team went on a little excursion to some park to get some “light exercise” in, just to keep the blood flowing. As we were running through the streets of Lima, Peru, everyone just stared at us, and just had these curious looks on their face, it was pretty funny.

After our little adventure, we watched some film on Dominican Republic and went over the scouting report so that we were fully prepared for tonight’s match. Once we had gone through all the rotations, we had about an hour and half off to relax and have some free time before we ate our delicious lunch of rice/noodles, chicken, and of course, bread.

With our tummies full of bread, we had a good amount of time to prepare ourselves for tonight’s match by either napping or listening to our pump up music.

At 4:30 p.m., USA departed from the hotel and took our routine bus ride to the gym. Let me tell you, these bus rides are not your typical American bus rides. These bus drivers are ferocious behind the wheel! Driving around the streets of Lima, Peru is pretty CRAZY!!! It’s like every man for himself; I am surprised we haven’t run over someone yet. But thank goodness we have our police escorts who do a magnificent job of making sure the streets are clear so we can travel from point A to point B as fast as we can. They are AWESOME! (but even if you want to go to the store right across the street, like maybe 50 steps, they are required to escort you. Haha)

All right, this is where it gets exciting! GAME TIME! After our jerky bus ride, we arrive to the gym and head straight to the locker room to put on our ankle braces, shoes, get taped by Dr. Denise, and of course break out our dance moves. It gets pretty intense, not going to lie :) After Mo pumps us up by singing our “WE READY” song, we are told that we are supposed to go in the “practice gym” to warm up and get some touches on the ball. Once we are warm, we finally run to the main gym where we put our games faces on and go straight into hitting lines and BOUNCE balls left and right! WE take it spike town!! After sharing warm up for 8 minutes, we finally are ready to get the show on the road.

In the first set, we came out really strong and attacked the Dominicans, forcing them to make errors and getting them out of sync. Second set, we did the same exact thing, put pressure on the Dominicans by attacking them and running our quick offense. However, in the third set, the Dominicans seemed to find their groove and started to counter-attack making some unbelievable plays. We stuck to our game plan, but Dominican Republic seemed to adjust very well to what we were doing and we were a bit caught off guard. Rally after rally, the Dominicans seemed to take control of this set, but we weren’t going down without a fight. We all knew what we had to do and trusted each other that we could come back. Once Dominican reached 20, we knew that we had to react fast and try and find a way to win those 4 points back. After side-ing out at 22-18, all of a sudden, out of NOWHERE, the lights in the gym turned off. We were standing on center court in PITCH BLACK. It was probably one of the scariest things that have ever happened. My first instinct was that we were in danger and something awful was going to happen. With darkness all around, I felt Haley Eckerman grab my arm for reassurance, and then I reached out to grab our phenomenal libero, Natalie (aka Nat Daddy) Hagglund, and held onto both of them as tight as I could. The power outage was quite the experience. The Peru fans were screaming and took out their phones to try and light up the place, but the cell phone lights didn’t help. After waiting around for almost 56 minutes, the lights finally came back on and we got about 6 minutes to warm up so we could continue the match.

Right before we went out onto the court, Rob Browning, (head coach) told us how perfect of an opportunity this is to show how mentally tough USA volleyball is and how we had to refocus right away in order to take this match back into our hands. And we definitely responded to Rob. Down 22-18, we sided out to make it 22-19, and with Carly Wopat serving tougher than nails, our defense stepped it up and blocked the Dominicans off the court. We battled rally after rally, making some spectacular blocks, digs, and thunderous kills. Tying the game at 23-23, we gained full momentum and decided to take and run with it. With an amazing stuff block on the right side, to give us match point, we all looked at each other and you could see it in our eyes that we had total confidence that this match was ours. Carly Wopat back to serve, and as we played out the match point rally, our right side blocker Mo Simmons, blocked the outside Dominican claiming the match in favor for USA. WOW! This set alone was one of the most amazing and epic comebacks that my teammates and I have ever been through. It was unbelievable and we celebrated this victory together all the way back to our hotel. Today was a phenomenal day and one that I will never forget. GO USA!!! OWWW OWWW!

Kelly Reeves