July 17, 2013
UCF Athletics Social Media Directory
Written by UCF head coach Todd Dagenais
USA WINS.....USA WINS....USA WINS! Our USA Junior National A1 team cruised to a 3-0 victory over the defending Hungarian League National Champions in our first match of the day. This was a return matchup of last night's final pool play match where we squeaked out a hotly-contested, emotional battle, 2-1.
We never trailed in the match until the start of the third set when they were down 4-1 before mounting a comeback tying the set at 9-9. We cruised from there to seal a victory and a spot in the 2013 Global Challenge Semifinals. It also secured a guarantee that we would be playing for a position on the medal stand.
We returned to the floor at 7:30 p.m. locally (1:30 Eastern) to face BIP SE. They are a team comprised largely of American college players from all over the United States. BIP SE won the pool that we were in, and earned the overall No. 2 seed in the gold medal round.
After such a big win in the morning over the Hungarian national champions, we were unable to sustain our momentum in our match against the BIP SE team and lost 3-1. The BIP team proved to be very worthy of their number one seed and played like a team who should be favored to win the championship tomorrow evening.
We are not quite sure who we will get to play in the bronze medal match, but we are already starting the recovery process now. We are really looking forward to being on the court again and having the opportunity to win the bronze medal for the United States.
The match is scheduled for a 12 noon start locally, or 6 a.m. start on the East Coast.
I have been coaching in the USA High Performance program now for eight or nine years and this is been one of the most positive experiences I've ever had with the team. The energy that Dan and Coley Pawlitkowski have brought has been very valuable to the growth of our team. Our players have been some of the most unselfish and highly motivated players I've had the pleasure to coach in the USA program pipeline.
We look forward to finishing our mission together tomorrow afternoon.
GO USA!!!!
-Todd