Kirk Kilgour and Randy Rosenbloom provided the TV commentary, so look for this match to  
be televised on Prime later this summer.

Brasil's team was depleted by injuries (or so my Brasilian friends tellme).  Of their top-level 
starting team that defeated Cuba in last year's Grand Prix and got shelled in last year's WC, 
only *one* starter could be found on the roster, Ana "Ida" Alvares.  Not present were starting
howitzers Ana Moser and Hilma Caldeiron and setter Fernanda Venturini.

Brasil came out with a line-up of very promising young players who still seem to be more
than competitive with USA's best.

USA started Endicott, Elaina Oden, Bev Oden, Liley, Williams, and Cross-Battle (whom the 
announcer kept calling "TCB").  Liskevich subbed infrequently; after Thursday  night's
 0-3 loss, tonight's goal must have been to get the starters back into groove.   Danielle Scott
occasionally replaced Bev, Kristin Klein and Stephanie Thater were used as back-row subs, 
and Natalie Williams took Liley's spot on a couple of occasions.  None of them really got
a chance to do much.  Salima Davidson dressed but did not play.  Zetterlund replaced
Endicott for much of Game 3, and was much more aggressive on her back-sets, repeatedly 
isolating Liley or Cross-Battle for sharp-cross slide kills.  Endicott must have gotten the
message; for the rest of the night, her back slide sets were our most reliable weapon.

Brasil's big gun for the night was 24-year-old, 5'10" Leila Barros, who led all hitters with 28 
kills, including the critical one to set up match point.  She was their go-to hitter, front-row 
or back-row; at crunch time in game 1, they kept setting her out of the back row, and her
hitting errors contributed in great part to USA's easy win.  Unfortunately for us, she used up 
her daily quota of hitting errors in that one game, and was nearly unstoppable  for the rest 
of the night.  Even though she's left-handed,  she hits left-side in the front row and right-side
 out of the back row, which is just the opposite of what you'd expect.

Brasil was utterly flat in Game 1, hitting into the net, long, and getting horrendously  
stuff-blocked repeatedly.  USA cruised to a 14-2 lead without really being pushed.   In the
next two games, Brasil opened up big early leads and survived USA's repeated comeback 
attempts, usually silencing the crowd with big kills.  USA started game 5 by serving long, 
gave up two real points to trail 2-4 and 4-7, Teee got really mad and blasted us back to 8-7 
and the side change, we traded  points to 13-12, Cross-Battle got monstrously stuff-blocked,       
Barros delivered a cross-court kill out of the back row, and on match point, our overdig was
blocked down.

IMHO, the overall keys to the match were:

o   USA's poor digging.  Brasil just had to slip the ball past the block and our back-row was
     out of place.  We let many, many more balls bounce within arm's reach of our  feet
     than Brasil did.  In contrast, we rarely could overpower Brasil's diggers.  This lack of ball
     control explains:

o   Brasil's highly-successful back-row attack.  During stretches of games 3 and 4, >50% of
     Brasil's sets went to the back row.  It was  not uncommon for Brasil to set the  back row 
     three consecutive times  in transition, ending with a kill.(to Elaina), but for us it was a 
     "secret weapon", while to Brasil it was more like bread and butter.