Wednesday, May 25 was our first full day in Costa Rica. Today we had breakfast and an orientation meeting about Costa Rica and our trip itinerary.  We then traveled to a local sports club to practice before our match this evening.  We worked hard and sweated a lot in a humid gym, afterward many enjoyed relaxing at the pool in the afternoon hours. 

Tonight we played our first friendly/exhibition match, competing against a local club team called Goicochea.  They served really well and had a couple huge middle hitters.  We found out after the match a few of them played for the Costa Rican national team.  Our coach Phil seemed to coach us like we were trying to qualify for the Olympics. He wasn't too happy with our performance in the beginning because we weren't quite playing to our potential. We were playing on a surface almost as hard as concrete, so Phil said we didn't have to dive to the floor as much as we usually do, but we all know that he was proud when we did anyway. Dani wasn't expecting to have to ice her forearms after a few matches but the ball they used was made of different material and was a lot harder than what we normally play with.

International rules are different so we tried to make adjustments by having fewer substitutions and other restrictions.  We started really slowly dropping the first two sets but rallied to take a lead late in the third set, unfortunately our hosts put a few big swings together and finished us off in set three 25-22.  After the match each team chose the player of the match for the other team, with Mary Sperry getting the award on our side.  After photos, we chatted with a few of their players who spoke English and did a quick interview with a local news reporter and we were headed back to Hotel Irazu. 

Tomorrow we get to visit a local day care for underprivileged children. Athletic Director Brian Streeter helped us gather many Penn State Behrend items to give away.  Our team also bought coloring books, crayons, chalk, and candy to hand out to the kids. We are really excited to play with the children tomorrow and our tour guide said this will mean a lot to them.  Afterward we will take a walking tour of San Jose (Costa Rica's capital city), and play our second match of the trip.  Oh yes, we'll probably also hang out at our beautiful hotel pool area because we're all trying to work on our Costa Rican tans…oh yeahhh!

Hasta manana! 

Graduated Senior Dani & Assistant Coach Carissa