Hello everyone!

This is Christian Jablonski (Jabo) reporting from our Brazilian compound. Finishing up day 13 of our 15 day journey, the great battle for the wifi continues amongst the team; with some of the boys getting up extra early to grab some of the limited wifi spots. Coming off a great team win last night, we were rewarded with an amazing trip to the island town of Paketa. A beautiful little town, that took about an hour to reach by ferry.

One of the first things we noticed once reaching the town, was that all transportation was done by bicycle or foot; there were very few cars. Most of the team stuck together, besides our Trini boys who decided to take the road less traveled. Our goal was to find the beach and we came about a cool lookout tower which consisted of underground tunnels. Ryan was determined to find the entrance to one of the smaller underground tunnels and he succeeded, not leading us to our death. 

After leaving the lookout tower, we came across a grove of trees where we saw little monkeys jumping from branch to branch. Offering little pieces of bread, chips and some of the leftover sausage, those little guys came right up to us and ate from our hands. Adam Purvis achieved a successful selfie with one of the monkeys, and Tanner Clay’s GoPro footage of the monkey needs to be on Animal Planet or Nat Geo. Erik Clark was not so lucky, as the monkeys did not take to his offered chips. It was a fun, unique experience for the boys as we interacted face to face with nature and animals that we’d never see back home. 

Took a nice relaxing ferry ride back home and returned to the compound for an amazing Brazilian BBQ meal prepared for us by our fantastic hosts. Huge game tomorrow morning for us against Brazilian power house, Fluminese. We are excited about this challenge for us and how it will continue to strengthen our team. Hope everyone back home is having a great evening! 

Go Cougs!

-Jabo 

Hey everyone!

This is rising junior Hunter Greer reporting from the second floor hallway of our compound just outside of Coach Lundy’s bedroom in fear of losing the wifi for my computer. Today was another much needed day of relaxation due to our 5 p. m. match that we had. 

The day started with our usual 8 a.m. wake up call. We ate breakfast and hung around the compound in preparation of our game later in the day. Shortly after finishing our food we retreated to our beds for our post breakfast nap. After our nap we watch Tucker Coons break Brian Kilgallon’s bed becoming the third bed that we’ve broken this trip. Tanner Clay showed us today that power trumps finesse as he announced throughout the day that he made 8 balls in 11 shots. After lunch Daan Brinkman, Brian Kilgallon, Adam Purvis, Nico Rittmeyer, Ryan McLaughlin, and myself broke the Brazilian record for headers in a row with 33 in the pool. Once out of the pool we relaxed in preparation for the game.

The Cougars were able to bounce back from our loss in the previous game with a 5-1 win with goals from Kye West (3), Nico Rittmeyer (1), and Xavi Rajpaul (1). After the game we were humbled as all of the fans and even the opposing team asked to take pictures with us. Xavi, Laurel, and Adam were particularly popular with the locals. This brings our record to 3-2-1 for the trip with one game remaining against Fluminense. Tonight we will have some more time to relax and prepare for the early morning and the long day ahead of us.