From: Paul Soriano
Subject: USA Women's National Training Team to Play Intrasquad Matches
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 14:46:44 -0600


USA Women's Volleyball Training Team to Play Three Intrasquad Matches

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Women's National Training Team of USA
Volleyball will play a series of three intrasquad matches from
Thursday-Saturday, May 1-3, USA Volleyball announced Friday.

The first match will be played at Coronado High School in Colorado
Springs on Thursday, May 1 at 7 p.m., with the second match scheduled
for 7 p.m. the next night at the United States Olympic Training Center
(Sports Center 1) in Colorado Springs. Admission to the first two
matches is free.

The final match will be at Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Colo.,
(outside of Boulder) on Saturday, May 3 at 3 p.m. Tickets for the
finale are priced at $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior
citizens.

The players will be available to sign autographs following each of the
matches.

According to Team USA Head Coach Toshi Yoshida, the matches will be used

to determine which players will be invited to train with the returning
veteran members of the National Team during the summer.

"These three matches are very important for the players," said Yoshida,
who guided the United States to a silver medal at the 2002 World
Championships in just his second year as coach. "They have to play well
to have the opportunity to stay here. The players know it and we (the
coaches) know it."

In March, the training team posted four wins in five matches to finish
third at the Mexicali Centenarian Women's Volleyball Cup in Mexico.
Among the wins was a stunning five-set victory over three-time defending
Olympic champion Cuba.

While USA middle blocker Wiz Bachman was the only member of the training
team that had any international experience to start the Mexicali
tournament, the Cuban team was nearly identical to the one that finished
fifth in the 2002 Women's Volleyball World Championships last fall.

Bachman-who was named "Best Attacker" of the Mexicali Cup-and the rest
of the training team were scheduled to play the Chinese Junior National
Team in a four-match domestic tour in Michigan and Ohio from April
26-May 2. However, the tour was canceled on April 7 due to concerns
with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

The intrasquad competitions will be used as the evaluation tool that the
domestic tour against the Chinese Junior National Team was meant to
provide.

The team will be split into two squads, with assistant coach Kevin
Hambly coaching a team made up of players who competed in the Mexicali
tournament and visiting coach Gen Kawakita-an assistant coach at Lock
Haven University in Pennsylvania-coaching a team comprised of returning
National Team players like Nicole Branagh, Jen Flynn, Sarah Noriega and
Nancy Metcalf.

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