WORLD CHAMPIONS!

We have won worlds!!!!! SO exciting... despite the strange Canadian protest following the game (more to come later), but we won and it's over and we are on our way back to the USA tomorrow!  It was quite a summer :)

Gold Medal Match.... TOMORROW!

Alright so.... the game against Greece went spectacularly!  We beat them 8-7, so it was a close one but overall a great success!  Elsie was on fire for the D-Team (defenders) and scored 5 goals (which were also her first of the tournament)... she was amazing!  I played pretty well, had a few kick outs but managed to stay in the game and scored our last goal to put us up by 2 going into the last few minutes of the game (always nice to have a little buffer).  Next up is Canada in the final!  We play them tomorrow (Friday) at 9 pm Italy time so tune in it should be exciting!  Pretty sweet that it is 2 North America teams in the final in a European country... but hey doesn't mean we're going to let them win, this is our title to take!

Greece... here we come!

So our game tonight should be online to watch, it's at 9 pm Rome time if you want to tune in live :)  We are super excited and I am READY TO GO!  Greece better watch out because they don't know what they have coming to them!  

Made it to the semis!

So last night under the lights we played Spain in the quarterfinals and WON!!!  woo hoo!!!  It was a pretty exciting game, but we definitely had control throughout and ended up beating Spain 9-6.  I had a great game defensively and was able to score the 9th goal in the fourth quarter putting us up by 3 and securing the final score :)  The team played well together and we are all very excited for Wednesday night when we play Greece in the semifinal.  On the other side of the bracket is Russia and Canada, so we'll see what happens, but we've put ourselves in position to win a medal... yay!

game three and four.... win win (win--funny if you watch the office)

Hokay so..... we won our third bracket game against Greece and boy did I have the game of my life!  I ended up scoring three goals and playing really well on defense throughout the game!  Our team ended up with quite a few kick outs (or monkey bites according to some), but played awesome 5-on-6 defense and totally shut them down!  YAY!  Anyway, that set us up to play China in our crossover game in order to get into the quarterfinals.  So, today we played China and beat them 12-9.  We played well as a team and Pete was on fire!  We controlled the game even with 11 ejections and 5 (yes 5) 5 meters. which if you aren't familiar with our sport that is RIDICULOUS!  Betsey rocked my world and blocked the first one and intimidated the shooter enough to get her to pause, forcing the refs to call it no goal!  Again, great 5-on-6 defense.  It was pretty funny though in the last two games to look around on the bench and realize that we ALL had 2 ejections, but we did a nice job of spreading them around and being able to keep everyone in and playing up to the end!  

Next up.... Spain in the quarterfinals and I can't wait!

Side note:  The hotel internet has unfortunately become a little spotty since the swim team got here (and yes Michael Phelps is staying in our hotel), so the posts have not been happening as often... my apologies.  Don't worry though, we paid 80 euro in order to have internet for the 17 days we are here and the faj in me has come out and tried to get out of paying for all of it since half the time we can't even get online!  I'll do my best though to keep you informed and if not you can always look online (usawaterpolo.com)

Follow us online...

You can find video of our games on universalsports.com.  Just find the FINA link on the website then click on the games under the schedule to watch the video.  :)

game two.... boo hoo :(

So we lost to Russia this morning 11-10, it was a rather disappointing game.  We were ahead and in control of the game most of the time, but didn't end up on top.  Rumor has it, if you are interested, the games are posted online to watch.  I think you can get to them from the main website: roma09.com

Next up... Greece on Thursday!