WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL
LONDON OLYMPICS PREVIEW
HIGH FLYER: Destinee Hooker has proven to be one of the top attackers in the world. (Photos: FIVB)
World Grand Prix in early June. Both have Olympic experience, Metcalf from the 2004 Athens Games and Haneef from both Athens and Beijing. Nicole Fawcett, another Penn State All-American and 2008 AVCA Player of the Year, also is in contention for a roster spot in London at opposite. The starting libero has been Nicole Davis (Stockton, Calif.), who was also the starter four years ago in Beijing. As of mid-June, the coaches hadn’t decided if they were going to take one or two liberos. If they take two, the second spot will go to either three-time Olympian Stacy Sykora or Kaneohe, Hawaii, native Tamari Miyashiro, who played her college ball at the University of Washington from 2006-2009 and just joined the National Team in 2010. At setter, Alisha Glass of Leland, Mich., has primarily served as the backup setter to Berg the past two years but also has shown she can handle the starting role; she was Best Setter at the 2010 FIVB World Grand Prix.
better the team got, the tougher it became to lock in on 12 players, so he and his assistants were still discussing and evaluating the fi nal roster as the team began defending its 2010 and 2011 gold medals from the FIVB World Grand Prix, a 16-team tournament that will take place this year from June 8 to July 1.
“Control what you can control.
We can’t worry about who’s doing what over on the other side. All we can worry about is trying hard to win the next point on our side.” Karch Kiraly
McCutcheon had hoped to have his Olym- pic roster fi nalized earlier in the year, but the
“To our pleasant surprise, a lot of people went away (to play on overseas club teams) and worked hard and came back signifi cant- ly better,” McCutcheon says. “And not just better individually, but it seems collectively our awareness and perception of the game has expanded. I think there’s a lot more little plays that get made now that weren’t being
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made before. So we have some really dif- fi cult choices to make, but I would rather be in a place where we have a lot of really good volleyball players vying for our 12 spots than wondering where we’re going to fi nd enough people to fi ll the roster.” From a historical perspective, Olympic gold is a big goal for the women’s program. In the Olympic volleyball era, which dates back to 1964, the U.S. Women have played only twice for the gold medal – at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and four years ago in Beijing – and both times they came away with the silver. And the women’s team has never won a FIVB World Championship or FIVB World Cup title either, so this is a prime op- portunity, and it’s one that McCutch- eon thinks his team will embrace now that it has risen to the top of the world order. “The No. 1 ranking itself doesn’t mean anything, but it does validate the process that we’ve invested in,” he says. “It says that we’re on a good path. I don’t know if it means we’re the best team out there or not, but I do think it means we’re capable of playing some really good volleyball.”
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