By HARRIET PROTHRO PENROD, Journal Sports
The U.S. Women’s National Team didn’t have any expectations going into its first match in the 2022 FIVB Volleyball Nations League (VNL) at Brookshire Grocery Arena on Tuesday night – other than to come away with a victory against Dominican Republic.
“We came in with low expectations because we knew this was a brand new team,” said Jordan Thompson. “At first, we were just kind of feeling each other out, trying to get into a rhythm. We didn’t start clean at the beginning, but we made some adjustments.”
It didn’t take long for the world’s No. 1-ranked team to find that rhythm, as the Americans came away with a straight-set (25-21, 25-17, 25-18) victory over world No. 7 Dominican Republic in Tuesday’s nightcap. In the first match of the VNL event, No. 2 Brazil defeated No. 11 Germany in four sets (29-27, 23-25, 27-25, 25-21).
The U.S. Women take a break in competition and will next face No. 18 ranked Canada at 8 p.m. Friday. Then comes the highlight of the tournament – Saturday’s 8 p.m. rematch of the championship game of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when the USA team won its first-ever gold medal with its victory over Brazil.
The United States will close out the tournament against Japan at 3 p.m. Sunday.
“We fumbled around a little at first,” U.S. outside hitter Alexandra Frantti said after Tuesday night’s win. “We had pre-game jitters and we just had to settle in. Going in, we had no expectations. We were just focusing on the little things.”
For Frantti, the opening-night game was especially important because it marked the outside hitter’s first competition at the world level.
The 2022 U.S. Women’s team is made up of seven veteran national team players and seven rookies. Leading the way for the USA are Olympic gold medalists Thompson and Annie Drews, Olympic alternates Lauren Carlini, Tori Dixon, Madi Kingdon Rishel and Sarah Wilhite Parsons, and 2019 VNL veteran Dana Rattke.
“Tonight was the start of a new Olympic cycle,” said U.S. coach Karch Kiraly. “When you start a new cycle, you have some people retire and you have new players.”
Both Frantti and Morgan Hentz were making their debuts at the world level.
“It was fun to watch them play,” said Kiraly. “I thought Morgan put on a spectacular show.”
Action continues today with Poland vs. Canada at 5 p.m. followed by Korea vs. Japan at 8 p.m.
The Bossier City event, the only preliminary round hosted in the United States, kicks off three weeks of VNL preliminary-round competition. Top teams in the preliminary round advance to the final round on July 13-17. Shreveport-Bossier hosted the U.S. Women’s last competition in the United States when the team qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2019.
Photo by JOHN PENROD