GYNT 2005 World Championships

For information on the roster and other updates from the tournament see:

http://www.usavolleyball.org/

 

Journal Entry #7

July 28th 6:30pm

As I made my way back from practice just a few minutes ago, I walked past the Chinese-Taipei team loading all of their stuff onto a bus out in front of the hotel. It reminded me that we are very fortunate to still be here in Macau, as eight of the 16 teams are now out of the tournament.

Yesterdays matches went as follows:

Argentina d Belarus (3-1)

Italy d Ukraine (3-1)

Russia d Egypt (3-0)

China d Chinese-Taipei (3-0)

USA d Croatia (3-0)

Brazil d Korea (3-0)

Changing things up a bit, we started the line-up of T. Carico, C. Kaelin, J. Doris, A. Engle, G. Urango, A. Edinger and K. Kuzma as the libero. Even though some of these players haven’t seen much playing time since we began the tournament, they stepped up to the plate and picked up where the team left off against Italy. In fact, instead of listing off the stats of these players, I would much rather share some of the extraordinary plays that they took part in last night.

Christina Kaelin attacked a ball down the line hitting the Croatian setter right in the stomach knocking her off balance and onto the floor.

Geena Urango also hit a ball down the line almost taking the head off the right side hitter.

Ashley Engle stuck a crucial serve receive pass at the end of game one and finished the play with a finesse shot that she rolled into the middle of the court without any of the Croatian players touching it.

Taylor Carico chased down a ball that was touched off the block and sailing out of the playing court to stop game point for Croatia in game three. The point went on to be the most exciting defensive rally I’ve ever seen.

These are just a few of the examples of the reason why we are such an unstoppable team. All of the players on this team bring something to the table and I know we are all very happy that these young women were able to showcase their abilities last night. The game scores were as follows: 27-25, 25-20, 30-28.

After the thrilling ending of the game, the team stuck around for the match between Brazil and Korea. This would determine which one of these teams would end up on our side of the bracket. Brazil ended up pulling out with win 3-0, leaving USA with Korea in own bracket.

After the matches, there was another drawing of the lots that would set up the entire bracket for the rest of the tournament. Down in the media room, everyone pretty much held their breath as the number positions and names of the teams were drawn one by one. Brazil ended up with the #1 seed and USA ended up with #8. This left Croatia with the #4 seed and Korea with the #5 seed. The next seed that was drawn was #6 and it was Russia. This pitted Korea against Russia in the first round of the play-offs, of which USA would play the winner if we won in the first round. The following seed was a big one, #2. The only teams that were left were Argentina, China and Italy. Because Italy was in our pool, we would not be allowed to play them in the 1st round of the tournament. This meant that if a team other than Italy was drawn for the 6th seed, we would automatically play the remaining team other than Italy.

This is exactly what happened.

Argentina was drawn as the #6 seed, leaving us to play China in the first round of the play-offs. Italy would face Croatia in the first round.

Here is the bracket as it stands:

Quarterfinals

Brazil

Argentina

Italy

Croatia

Korea

Russia

China

USA

1v2, 3v4, 5v6, 7v8. Second round w1v2 vs. w3v4 and w5v6 vs. w7v8. After that the two final teams remaining undefeated after the semis, will play one another for the gold medal.

Surprisingly, no one in the room even made any kind of reaction all throughout the draw. It was very different than what I would have expected given the first draw that I witnessed.

Looking at the overall bracket, we definitely recognize that our road to the Gold will no longer be anything less than a dog fight. However, I think we are ready for it and anxious to get to the match against China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated October 09, 2005 by Wisconsin Select Volleyball Club