Back-to-back sweeps for USA women in pre-Olympics matches with Netherlands
The USA women finished a three-match series with the Netherlands with back-to-back sweeps, coming away with a 28-26, 25-18, 25-17 victory Sunday at Long Beach State’s Pyramid in a pre-Olympics volleyball tuneup for both teams.
Annie Drews led with 15 kills and four blocks. Kathryn Plummer had 13 kills and three blocks. Setter Jordyn Poulter had the team’s only two aces and a kill.
After opening with a 3-2 victory last Thursday, the Americans then won 25-21, 25-20, 25-13 on Friday. Plummer led in that match with 20 kills while hitting .594 to go with four blocks. Haleigh Washington added eight kills, hitting .533, and had six blocks and two aces.
“We’re ecstatic that our group is getting to a really good state of health,” USA coach Karch Kiraly told USA Volleyball. “For the first time all season, we were able to start the same seven people for two consecutive matches (Friday and Sunday).”
The team leaves for the Paris Olympics on July 20 and opens play July 29 against China. The competition has three four-team pools and the top two in each pool plus two others get through to the round of 16. The USA’s second match is July 31 against Serbia and it finishes against France, a weak opponent that got an automatic bid as the host country. Barring a monumental upset by France against one of the other two teams, the Americans have little margin for error.
“We did some good things here and also we see that we still have work to do,” Kiraly added. “We’re going to take these 15 days and improve as much as we can and then throw everything we’ve got at China and Serbia.”
Jim Wolf was on hand for the matches and his best shots from Friday and Sunday follow. Click on any image to view full size:
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