Stavanger, Norway

Bronze in Norway. Felt like we let one slip away. Lost a tough match in the semis and if we had won we would have been playing Norway for the Gold. Great tourney for the Norwegians on their home turf though. Cool to see all the Norwegian fans going crazy over their team. I am sure the promoter was on cloud 9.

Pool play was a bit rocky for us. Played Matt and Nick first game and went 3 with them. Beat them soundly in the first and then the second they steadied out to win. The third had a million rallies in it but we ended up prevailing. Later that day we played the Russians and they beat us pretty good. Tight first game and then the second they served us off the court. Igor has a gnarly serve when he has it going. Next day we played Norway and beat them in two fairly handily. Came out 2nd in our pool behind Russia who went 3-0 so we didn't get the bye.

In the single elim playoffs on Saturday, we started off against Switzerland. Played poorly in the first. Could not convert a lot of point chances. Picked it up in the 2nd and 3rd to win the match. Next game played the 2nd Latvian team. They were super scrappy and gave us all we could handle. Left sider is a lefty who is really smooth and the right side guy is the same guy we played and lost to in the Olympics. He scooped a lot of balls but we were able to win 18 and 19. Third match that day we played Emanuel and Allison. I must say we played really well. Was our best game of the tourney by far and it had to be to beat those guys. We won in 2 with the first game being not very close. The 2nd game being a battle where we scored a real one to win 21-19.
Sunday we lost to the Germans in the semis. They played really well. The first I played poorly and we pretty much got smoked. The second we picked it up and won. The third was close. I passed a ball about 20 feet off the net at 13-12 down and then hit a waffle ball about 20 feet out to give them match ball. Sided out the next one but then David hit a knuckle pokey deep angle over Phil as I went to the cut shot. Shot landed on the line. Gutsy call but it worked. In the bronze we came out and played solid ball. The Spaniards had just been upset by the Norwegians about 45 minutes earlier so I think they were still in a bit of a funk. Not there best game for sure.