USA women’s junior
national team ready to compete in Under-20 World
Championships
 July 16, 2005 – Colorado, USA – On July 20th, the 2005
USA women’s junior national team will head to Ankara,
Turkey, where they will make their third appearance at
the FIVB Under-20 World Championships.
The tournament consists of 12 teams broken up into two
pools playing in two different cities. Pool A, which
will play in Ankara, is composed of Brazil, Croatia,
Japan, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey and the United
States. Pool B will compete in Istanbul and is made up
of China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Italy, Puerto Rico
and Russia.
The Americans qualified for the tournament by going
undefeated (4-0) and winning the gold at the 2004
NORCECA Zone Championships last August in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada.
However, the team will be without four of its starters
from last year: Angie McGinnis, Jordan Larson, Nicole
Fawcett and team captain Cynthia Barboza.
“We are without four important starters from last
year…however, we are focusing more on what we have than
what we don’t have,” said Shelton Collier, third-year
head coach for Team USA and head coach of the women’s
Volleyball team at Wingate University in North Carolina.
“Marcie Hampton is a veteran player who has stepped up
as our leader, Foluke Akinradewo and Alexis Crimes have
been very impressive in the middle and have some quality
experience internationally and Ami Stevens is passing at
a high level, which is very important for our success,”
he added.
In 2003, many of last year’s WJNT members competed at
the FIVB Youth World Championships in Poland and posted
a best-ever fourth-place finish after losing to Brazil
in the bronze medal match.
In order to emerge from a very competitive pool, the
team will once again have to get past heavy-hitter
Brazil, as well as Turkey, and Croatia.
“Brazil is very strong, although we were very
competitive with them in the bronze medal match two
years ago,” said Collier. “Turkey on their home floor
will be strong, and Croatia is very good as well.”
The U.S. team will face Brazil in their second match of
pool play on July 24, Croatia on July 27 and Turkey on
July 28.
A group of 18 players have been training at the U.S.
Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York, since
July 8.
“We’ve been training hard, twice-a-day, making a lot of
progress. We obviously have a very short training period
compared to the other countries. Other teams will have
played 50-100 matches and we will have played zero…so we
are trying to accelerate our development,” commented
Collier. |
Competition Formula