Trinidad Match 3 Pan Am Cup

We started the day with a training session in the practice gyms. It was mostly ball control and serve and pass. Just an opportunity to get moving and a good feeling before the match. After practice Lupo met with the setters to go over some situation from the night before. He asked a lot of questions to guide them to the answer he was looking for. I was really impressed with the honest answers from the setters. You can tell there is a strong connection between Lupo and his athletes.

The rest of the afternoon was again used for treatment and a quick nap.

We started the match with Kelci French at setter, Lisa Barclay at right side, Becky Pavan and Marissa Field in the middle, Kyla Richey and Britt Page at left side. We used the two Libero system again. This was a little in doubt in the morning as Tesca wasn't feeling well, but was way better by game time. The first set were found our stride on offence. It felt like we were scoring at will, but when ever I checked the score Trindad was close. We were able to find some rhythm in blocking late in the set and create some spread in score then cruised to a 25-23 win. Trinidad chipped away but set never felt in jeopardy.

The second set we started out where we left off jumping out to a big lead. Our block and defence transition created a lot of points in this set. The Lisa Barclay started to dominate the match. Britt,Kyla and Tesca are passing really well allowing many options freeing Lisa up. We knew everything was falling into place when Marie Sophie scored on a free ball deep to 5. Lupo noticed the Libero was started to cheat in as most of our free balls were going 1 or 2. Marie fried a ball deep 5 and caught their lib flat footed.We won that set 25-14

The third set Lupo started Dani as setter. Dani has a great connection with the middles and we wanted to establish that again at the first technical time out we were up 8-4. Lupo decides to rest Kyla and replaced her with MP. Mp played so well last night in relief of Britt we expected the same. We were playing really well then we lost our sense of urgency and relaxed. Trinidad battled back to tie the match up at 23. We then found our discipline again and used our block defence to win 26-24.  It is good we can win those kind of matches but need to stay more disciplined in the middle of the match. But we have been really good after 20.

Lisa Barclay led the team with 15 points. Next was Becky Pavin with 10 and Marissa Field with 9. Becky also received the Canada Hat for impact player of the match. Janie said she won it for her attitude on and off the court as well as her fine play as both a right side and middle. I will try to get a photo of the hat on the next winner.

Up next is Cuba and their 6'3" 14 year old player.