ARLINGTON, Texas — “Irritating loss,” USA Karch Kiraly mentioned Saturday after his group fell 29-27, 25-22, 20-25, 25-23 to Poland in Volleyball Nations League.
“It felt like we had been making an attempt to climb out of quicksand quite a bit and we had been down a lot of the match.”
The American ladies need to climb out of it in a rush, as a result of they conclude the second spherical of VNL at 3 p.m. Central Sunday in opposition to Türkiye.
Poland leaves right here 8-0, tied atop the 16-team VNL lead with Brazil. Italy and Japan completed 6-2 and Türkiye is 5-2, alone in fifth place. Brazil completed the second spherical with a sweep of Thailand on Sunday in Macao, China.
The USA is 4-3 and in seventh place, share factors forward of Canada.
Canada continues its Olympic quest at UT Arlington at 11:30 a.m. Central when it performs Korea (1-6) and after USA-Türkiye, Bulgaria (1-6) performs Germany (1-6) in a battle of last-place groups.
There have been vibrant spots for the USA, for positive, not the least of which was the efficiency of 37-year-old Jordan Larson. The surface hitter had 20 kills with one error — that try was blocked — in 40 assaults to hit .475. She additionally had a block and 11 digs.
“She’s enjoying unbelievably nicely proper now,” Kiraly mentioned. “While you have a look at her hitting .500 in opposition to China, near .400 in opposition to Brazil, four-something in opposition to Canada, four-something tonight in opposition to an excellent Poland group, she simply retains doing it.
“It’s actually spectacular how she ready herself for this 2024 season.”
Larson, the Nebraska nice and star of the Tokyo Olympics when the USA gained gold, acknowledged that the group remains to be forming and this group has had restricted time collectively, “however we shot ourselves within the foot.
“There are quite a lot of positives however extra work to do than something.”
In case you take Larson out of the field rating, her teammates mixed for 42 kills with 21 errors in 106 swings. What’s extra, the USA had one ace, by Jordan Thompson, and 15 serving errors. Poland had two aces and eight errors and hit .240.
Thompson had 16 kills and a block. Kathryn Plummer acquired the beginning at outdoors hitter and had six kills and three blocks, but additionally had 4 hitting errors in her 16 assaults and three service errors. She had 5 digs, however struggled just a few occasions on serve obtain and protection. Avery Skinner changed her within the third set and made a right away affect, ending with seven kills and a block. She had, nonetheless, 5 errors.
“Yeah, aside from hitting 4 BICs into the online,” Kiraly famous. “That was a catastrophe. (Skinner) is able to placing a gap of their ground or knocking any individual over, however we now have to hit these over the online, however she’s doing a little very nice issues for USA and displaying some nice potential.”
Center Dana Rettke had seven kills in 11 errorless makes an attempt, a block and 6 block touches.
“Clearly our serving may have been higher, and that begins with me,” mentioned Rettke, who had an error and no aces in 13 serves. “Poland is a very, actually good group. They’re actually proficient with quite a lot of nice gamers … I believe basically at the moment we in all probability may have jumped in faster from the get-go but it surely was an awesome studying expertise and we don’t need to be at our greatest proper now, so this can be a good alternative to develop. Disappointing, however I believe we’ll have quite a bit to remove from this match.”
Chiaka Ogbogu began on the different center spot and had a kill and a block earlier than being changed by Haleigh Washington within the second set. Washington had 5 kills and three blocks — two on the finish of the third set to win it — and 7 block touches.
USA setter Jordyn Poulter had two blocks and 6 digs, and solely two errors to indicate for her 20 serves.
“It took us a short time to settle into how we need to play volleyball,” Poulter mentioned.
The People completed the second set on a 9-1 run and within the fourth led 22-21.
“Each match is a unique set of issues or a unique set of locks to select,” Kiraly mentioned, “and I believe we got here nearer however didn’t deal with the element performs sufficient to make it go 5 and provides ourselves an actual probability to win that one.”
Poland’s Magdalena Stysiak led her group with 24 kills, an ace and two blocks. Martyna Lukasik had 13 kills and a block and Natalia Medrzyk had 11 kills and a block.
“Within the first units we took benefit of a few of their errors by america and we saved our consideration, our deal with the main points,” Polish coach Stefano Lavarini mentioned.
It’s greater than probably the 2 groups will meet once more in Paris, however that’s a great distance off. Kiraly is anticipated to call the USA’s 12-person, one-alternate Olympics roster late subsequent week, however there’s no hurry. He has three weeks earlier than it needs to be submitted. Kiraly additionally talked about Saturday that he’s glad that two USA veterans who’ve but to play on this VNL, reverse Annie Drews and out of doors Kelsey Robinson Cook dinner, will probably be within the fold quickly.
“We’ve acquired stuff to work on, for positive,” Kiraly mentioned.
“We’re not taking good care of the main points like we have to like I’m assured we’ll as we get into the season. It’s June no matter, first, so there’s quite a lot of work to be achieved and there’s time to do it.”