adventures of the great wall

Amazing...If i had to describe the great wall of china to anyone with one word it would be AMAZING!!!!!!To think it was man made...It was hard to just walk up the already built great wall..imagine building it...Here are a few pictures of the hike up the great wall..Our tour was limited so we only climbed for about 40 minutes and then raced back down..WE were the ultimate tourist and bought t-shirts and took lots of pictures..I will put up a team picture later..If your ever in China come see part of the great wall you will not regret it...

Who knew?? from tecalitlan, mexico to commerce CA

check out this story "http://universalsports.nbcsports.com/water+polo"
Hopefully, water polo can get more coverage for the upcoming olympics..We, team USA have supporters in different walks of life..in more than one language. Maybe the different mediums will provide more options to watch water polo in beijing via television...


Team USA played a game in commerce on january 27 and we had a full house..In attendance were Patty's parents and my mom and uncle all from the little "pueblito" of tecalitlan that has produced many water polo players...what was in that water???

Let the New year begin!!!!

We started the new year with a training trip to the land down under...Our first destination was Perth, Australia and finished the trip off in Sydney, Australia.
This training trip consisted of lots of training and 5 official games at various locations in Australia..We had a few beach workouts that provided us with new war stories to tell friends and families...During a swim session at the beach half the team was stung by jellyfish..can you believe it....luckily no one is allergic and we survived...In sydney, the australians tried to get us off our game and scheduled a game in a playing field located in a bay..Bay, you say, its true..the water was not clear and it was very salty..It was a fun bonding experience..we were out of our comfort zone but we were still able to perform..that is what our program is all about...
Unfortunately, we didnt win any of the games on the road..we tied 2 games and lost three...But dont you worry...we collected lots of information and we are so competitive that this will get us through the next month of training....

Semi Final

We played Russia in the semi final of the 4 nations cup...They had beat us soundedly a couple days ago so we were excited for the rematch..It was a hard fought game..We were able to control the game with good ball control on offense and fairly good defense..We are still struggling with our 5on6 and 6on5...We were only able to convert 2 of 6 on 6on5 and a 5m...Russia was able to covert 5for 9...With two big 5on6 saves in the last part of the 4th quarter...they game was a high scoring game ending 12-10

figee 1, villa 2,golda 2,cardenas 2,steffans 2, gregorka 1,van norman 2

We play Australia in the final tomorrow at 1130 am est...

Shoot out!!!!

We beat Australia in a shoot out....
The game began with lots of intensity and aggresiveness from both teams..The rivalry between Australia and the US has grown with the success of both teams..We tend to meet up in lots of knockout games..
All I remember from the game is being down 7-4 going into the 4th quarter..I actually got to watch a lot of the game because I was majored by the end of the second quarter..To start of the fourth quarter we came out with two unaswered goals..We finally started focusing and listening to the coaching staffs instructions and we were patient and broke down their defense...We had an opportunity to win the game in regulation but missed a 5 m...So we played defense after that and went into a shoot out..One of our shooter's hit the bar and Betsey responded buy blocking one of the 5m..When it came down to both teams last shooters australia's captain sailed it over the goal and Petri without a second thought nailed the game winning penalty...It was such an exciting game..We should a lot of character coming back from the loss yesterday and getting back on track in the 4th quarter today..
petri 2, wenger 2,golda 2,cardenas 1, gregorka 1
final score 8-8--after shoot out 12-11...

let it snow!!!

as we were getting ready to depart for our game vs Australia...it started snowing in montreal....so we walked through the snow to catch the metro to our game...here we are outside the pool, getting ready to battle the aussies!!!!!

Winning streak is over!!!!!

36 games without losing...we didnt think about this winning streak or talk about this winning streak..but now that it is gone...we miss it...Today at the 4 nations tournament the Russian showed up with their A game and we started with our A game and ended with our B game...They handed our butts to us with a loss of 7-11 and ended the winning streak...But we thank the Russians...we will learn from that loss and move forward..
On a side note..it was very fitting that the Russians handed us our first loss in 36 games...they were the last team to beat us before we went on this streak..We walked away from the world cup last summer with a 4th place finish with a loss to the russians..That made us raise the bar and that fueled our wonderful year of 2007..now we are on our next little journey..so thanks russia..were back on track...