Former national team player Therese Crawford (with infant son and husband far right front row) host dinner for current national team players
Team USA starts Pool F versus No. 14 Algeria (0-3, 0 points) on Aug. 9th, followed by No. 19 Netherlands (1-2, 3 points) on Aug. 10th and host No. 9 Serbia (3-0, 9 points) on Aug. 11th.
“We have Algeria, Netherlands and Serbia this weekend, and they are all strong teams,” USA Women’s national team head coach Karch Kiraly said. “We take every opponent we face as the best one we can possibly face. It starts with Algeria. I have not had a chance to watch much video on them, so I can’t tell much about them. Our goal we will be as it is every time we put on a USA uniform, and that is to maximize our chances to win the next point. We look at it as an opportunity to learn and improve in the course of competition.”
With an 18-match World Grand Prix win streak on the line and a perfect 10-0 record to start the 2013 season, Team USA met host Brazil in a classic matchup of No. 1 and No. 2 in front of an energetic crowd of 4,500 spectator s in which all tickets to the match were sold within an hour of going on sale. Team USA jumped out in front to win the first set 25-17 against its host. However, Brazil used several strings of unanswered points to claim the next three sets 25-23, 25-18 and 25-20. Hill ended as the team’s leading scorer with 15 points, according to the team’s unofficial DataVolley stats.
“Overall I think the first weekend of World Grand Prix went well for USA,” Kiraly said. “We had lots of new faces. We only had one player last week who played in her normal role from the London Olympics, and that was Christa Harmotto. All-in-all it was a nice effort. We also learned certainly in the loss to Brazil about some things to improve upon, and that is this team’s number-one job, each athlete’s number-one job, and each coach and staff member’s number one job – to learn and improve and grow. We got some great lessons against Brazil in a match we could have won. We will improve on some things and maybe make it more possible to win next time.”
To read more news from this competition click on World Grand Prix 2013.
