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!

Game one... we won :)

I hope you enjoyed the title as much as I did... anyway we beat Kazakhstan today 19-6 or something close to that (I can't quite remember).  We didn't get off to the best start and went down 3-0 at the beginning of the game, but quickly came back and stayed ahead from there out.... so not the prettiest game, but we clearly got the job done.  I ended up scoring one goal from the post 6 on 5, but also got my third ejection late in the forth quarter (oh well).

Next up... Russia on Tuesday and I'm already excited!

First Game Tomorrow

So, tomorrow marks the official start of our tournament opening up with Kazakhstan (and no Borat is not on the team)!  I'm super excited to start playing games because we have spent enough time now playing against each other.  

Training here in Rome has been going well so far, but some of the training pools are quite a distance away (or at least it takes forever to get there, I'm still having trouble switching between km and miles.... stupid metric system, not to mention they run on military time and use celsius!)  Most of the pools are outdoors and apparently the sun is just as bright here as it is at Los Al because boy did I get a bit of a burn today!  Oh well... one of the pools is next to a kennel of some sort (we're still wondering if they have dog fights over there) because seriously the entire practice you can hear at least 5 (usually more) dogs barking at a time, weird and annoying!  Other than that not much new to report, the food is good, rooms are nice and clean, and hey games start tomorrow can't get much better than that :)

PS

I clearly have not mastered the picture posts and they are all over the place, my apologies!

Rome in a day...

Ok so.... a few days ago we had the day off and got to spend it touring Rome (or as I like to say we roamed Rome tee hee).  Since I have NEVER been here I decided to see everything in one day!  The day began early, 7 am, and apparently I like traveling around with the staff because the tour group that joined me on this adventure consisted of Jess, our trainer, team manager, two assistant coaches, and the USA water polo organizer person (or better known as Nikki).  We mastered the bus system (since it was free) and used it to go to St. Peters Basilica first (thanks to Erik we got there early so we didn't have to wait in line forever).... and walked around inside for a while... it was AMAZING!  (the first picture on the right doesn't do it justice, but that's it).  From there we went into The Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel, which was cool.... the longer we sat inside the Sistine Chapel the more amazing it was!  Our assistant coaches were sitting there gazing up at the ceiling in the dimly lit quite room for so long that they both dozed off at some point, it was quite funny!  

After that all but one assistant headed off to the Colosseum where we sat down for lunch and enjoyed a nice iced coffee that turned out to be basically a glass of milk with a hint of coffee taste, but at least it was cold and provided a bit of a pick-me-up because I was starting to drag a bit.  So after lunch we went to the Forum (since you can get a double ticket for that and the Colosseum then skip the line to get

 into the Colosseum.... thanks hotel man for that inside tip!)  The Forum was basically a 

bunch of ruins but was REALLY cool, one of my favorite parts (its the second picture down).  From there it was straight to the Colosseum (pic number 3) where we "staged a fight" that didn't quite turn out as cool as we thought it would, but it was fun.  After our gladi

ator adventure it was a quick stop at the Trevi Fountain (pic 4) where Jess enjoyed a gelato and threw coins into the fountain (one for a trip back to Rome, two for romance, and three for either marriage or divorce.... kind of a risk to throw three coins in at once).  We also ran into a few traveling teammates there and said hello!  After that a short stop over to the Pantheon (the last pic and largest free standing dome until the astrodome was built... oh Erik and his "interesting" trivia facts!)  Then, from there we had dinner (mmmmm Italy pizza! in some sort of plaza with a bunch of artists and

 a few impressive street musicians before heading back to the hotel for a much needed cold shower and SLEEP!  Ended up being a 12 hour day of touring the city and I must say I'm impressed with how much we were able to accomplish!  Job well done Jess and staff :)