We had such a fast turn around from our Mexico match to the Dominican Republic match I didn't have time to update. Therefore I am writing about both matches in this blog.
The Mexico team, we have played a couple times at the world qualifier and had some idea about them. Everyone who plays sports knows how hard it is to beat a host country in their gym.
We started Kelci French at setting, Lisa Barclay at right side, Britt Page and Kyla Richey at left side. In the middle we started Marissa Field and Becky Pavan. Becky played well in her last start, plus she was great in the final of the qualifier against Mexico.
We wanted to try and use our height and strength against them. The match started out exactly as we planned. We sided out first ball, then had three stuff block by Marissa to show the Mexicans our plan. The difference between this match and the matches in Canada was the Mexican fans started to get involved.
We continued to play well but the Mexican players were digging everything. At the beginning Lupo talked about patience and to expect some long rallies. It is hard to not try to over swing in this situation. It felt like we were in charge of the set, but every time I checked the score it was tied. We were having some trouble scoring on the left side. But Lisa was scoring well on the right side and on the pipe. Normally after 20 we have been really crisp, but today we seemed to be second guessing our selves. This led to a 25-27 first set loss.
I believe we were surprised by the level of compete the Mexicans brought and it caught us off guard. The second set we started the same way we finished, second guessing ourselves . This set started off bad, we fell down 8-4 at the first technical. Lupo decided to make a change. He subbed Marie-Pierre for Kyla. MP made an instant impact. She brought a ton of energy and really started to hit the ball well. We had evened the match at 18. We traded points for the rest of the set. Mexico was up 24-23 and Lisa made a huge kill to even it up. MP went back and hit a tough spin serve we were able to transition a dig to go up 25-24. Unfortunately her set point serve hit the tape and stayed on our side. Match tied at 25. The Mexican then served tough and played strong block defence and won 25-27.
The crowd here was incredible every time any of our Canadian players were serving there was a ton of noise, whistling screaming clapping. Every missed served that we made the fans took credit and rewarded themselves with an even louder cheer. When they have a chance to win the set the whole building is up chanting. I believe they are saying "one more" but I am just guessing.
Set 3 we started Lucy in place of Becky and left MP in. We dominated this set all the way through. Finally playing and imposing our strength ans size on them. Lisa was unstoppable, one attack she hit over the setter was straight down. It actually silence the crowd for a couple of seconds. We won this set 25-15.
The fourth was much of the same everything went great. The Mexican coach flooded his bench at 12 to rest his players for the fifth. We won 25-14.
The fifth set is a sprint and teams need to stay focused and play each ball. It is hard not to scoreboard watch but it can be the biggest distractor in this situation. We battled hard but came up short. It was a real shock, especially after the way we played them in Canada A month before. 15-9
Lisa had 21 points in the effort Britt and MP had 14 each. Up next the Dominican. MP was awarded the Canadian hat in. Strong speech from Dani Smith.
After the Mexican match we arrived back at the hotel at midnight. The team ate and went to bed. We went to Lupo's room to begin video. By 2 am we had the scout sheet ready for the next morning. We will meet again at 9am. to go over the rest and create the video to show the team
We are scheduled to play the Dominican at 4pm. This meant no training before and video at 11. This is going to be the fifth match in 5 days. Players need to know its going to hurt and be tough so be prepared mentally. This explains why for two weeks the athletes were really fatigued in practice. Lupo and Scott were trying to teach them that they can still perform in this situation.
The Dominican are ranked 8th in the world. They have 3 world class spin servers. Our game plan was sound it played to our strengths and exploited their weaknesses. The struggle would be the mental capacity to maintain the systems.
We started with the line up we did against the Cubans. Kelci setting, Lisa at right, Kyla, Britt at left, Lucy and Marissa in middle. The two Libero system. The two libs system has been working really well for us. Janine is tremendous on defence and can focus on different assignments and constantly remind the rest of their responsibility. Tesca has been passing really well and along with Britt and Kyla have really controlled the matches.
The Dominicans jumped out to a quick lead on their serving. It took us half the first set to catch up to their speed but once we did we settled in. We were able to show a passing position trying to force a secondary serve. Then on their toss we would adjust towards this position. This slowed their serving down a bit.
We weren't playing reall crisp actually felt like we were playing in sand. Our block defence was working so the Dominicans started tipping. 
We were just a second late to reacting to this. We ended up losing 25-22.
The second set did not go well for us. It is really hard not to let mistakes in one part of your game creep into others. An example struggling to score, so during the rally your still problem solving the attack and then miss a dig. Then this piles on to the attack you can get lost in your head. This is why I really respect Britt Page. I feel that she has figured out how to focus on the necessary skill on hand. Bouncing back and forth between left side and right side can't be easy. She kept battling the whole set digging and passing. At 19-12 Lupo pulled her to rest for the third. 
Let's give Marie Sophie a chance to spark us. We also subbed Dani in for Kelci. Dani has a tremendous amount of fight in her and plays with passion. We lost the set 25 -14.
The third set we started MP and Kyla with Britt at right side. We also started Dani. The thought was we would go with more of a ball control line up. Hopefully Britt could give us some back row presence. Dani was decided to create energy and to hopefully create some fight. You cannot question this teams work ethic, but again it was like playing in sand. We kept he the match close. One four point run in the middle of the set cost us. Dominican won 25-22. I think we should realize how close we are to this team. I believe it is time for this group to quit trying to play with the Dominicans and time to play better than them. We have the talent to do this. Britt page led us with 14 points and Marissa had 8. MP passed the Canadian hat to Tesca. She has led our passing group well. The two libs system really highlites her strength on serve reception.
Day off tomorrow the Puerto Rico in quart finals.
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