A week and a half before the Michigan volleyball team was supposed to embark on its spring trip to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, senior Juliana Paz broke her pinky finger in practice.

The talented Brazilian outside hitter was returning home to play in her native country for the first time since coming to the University last season.

The injury might have forced Paz to miss playing in front of friends and family, but she rebounded from the fracture to play in most of the team’s matches.

From May 17-29, the Wolverines faced six Brazilian club teams, notching a 5-2 record during that stretch.

“(The trip) was a great experience for us,” Michigan coach Mark Rosen said. “A couple matches were close, a couple we lost, and a couple matches we won easily, which is kind of what we were looking for out of the trip.”

After playing five matches in the first five days, the team got some much-needed rest before heading to Saquarema, Brazil.

Saquarema is the home to the Brazilian National Team training center, with four state-of-the-art gymnasiums at its disposal.

“It’s built just for volleyball,” Rosen said. “We’re sitting in this dining hall and you look over there and there’s a table with the best men’s team in the world for the past 15 years and then over on the other table, there’s eight girls with gold medals from the last Olympics.

"You’re like, ‘Wow, this is pretty special.' "

Michigan took on Saquarema’s Junior National Team, which Rosen said was the favorite to win the Junior Championships in July, according to Rosen.

Just a week prior, National Champion Penn State squared off against the same team, defeating them in two five-set matches. Rosen knew it would be a great tune-up for a team that is still looking to get over the hump that separates it from the upper tier of the Big Ten Conference.

The Wolverines eventually lost both matches but held their own against one of the best Junior National teams in the world.

Despite the losses at the end of the trip, Rosen said the trip was a success overall. His players traveled to an unfamiliar place where they didn’t know the language or culture but became an even tighter-knit group over those 12 days. In that time, Paz became the official translator of the team and made her teammates' experience a little better because of her knowledge of the country.

“There’s that uncomfortable part of it that brings you closer together,” Rosen said.

The trip could be what Michigan needs to push itself into Big Ten title contention next year. Purdue and Illinois traveled to international destinations in previous years, with noticeable improvement in the team’s performance in the following season. But Rosen knows just going on a team trip doesn’t mean anything unless his team is prepared mentally and physically for the entire season.

“The girls have to come into the fall in great shape, ready to compete,” Rosen said. “Every indication I have of when we left (Brazil) is that they’re jacked up and ready to come back raring at it."