Let’s focus on this week’s main takeaway: The U.S. Women’s National Team did what it needed to do in Santa Fe, Argentina, to finish the Volleyball Nations League preliminary round atop the standings with a 13-2 overall record.

The Americans will be joined in two weeks in Nanjing, China, for the Final Round by Serbia (12-3), Brazil (12-3), Netherlands (12-3), Turkey (11-4), and host team China (7-8).

To kick off the final week of preliminary play on Tuesday, however, the Americans lost a 3-1 battle to Serbia, which ended their 10-match win streak. Michelle Bartsch-Hackley had 26 points and the team racked up a tournament-record 16 blocks with Rachael Adams leading the charge with six, but Serbia’s Bojana Milenkovic and Ana Bjelica each contributed more than 20 points, and Serbia earned the W.

Serbia traveled to the final week of preliminary play without its A-team roster or its head coach Branko Kovačević, but the team still went 3-0 on the week and moved up in the rankings, surpassing Brazil to take second place. 

In an unfortunate bit of luck for the Americans, they’ll see Serbia and Turkey, the only two teams to beat them in the preliminary rounds, again in their Final Round pool.

Team USA didn’t dwell long on the loss and wrapped up preliminary play with back-to-back sweeps over Korea and Argentina. 

In the Korea match, Sarah Wilhite, a relatively recent addition to the women’s national team roster, started the third set in place of Bartsch-Hackley and tallied four kills and an ace.

In the final night of prelim play, the U.S. women demolished last-place Argentina, preventing the South American team from scoring more than 15 points in any of the three sets. Five U.S. players tallied double-digit points—opposite Annie Drews and Bartsch-Hackley led the way with 13 each.

Micha Hancock, who has played the substitute setter role in the double sub for most of the tournament, started and played all the way around in sets two and three. She even contributed two aces from behind the service line with her signature lefty jumper.

“We wanted to end this really long tournament with a really good match,” Bartsch-Hackley said. “I think we did that, and we are ready to go on.”

Argentina, which only won one match in the preliminary rounds, will be relegated. A new challenger team will be selected at the Volleyball Nations League Challenger Cup prior to next summer’s VNL tournament.

Team USA, which has featured almost the exact same group of 14 players throughout five weeks of play, will now return home for a couple of weeks. The team will take the time to rest, practice, and regroup, before shipping back out to China to fight for the first-ever VNL gold medal.