Setter Micah Ma'a (UCLA 2016-19) and outside hitter Garrett Muagututia (UCLA 2007-10) have been named to the U.S. Men's National Team which will compete this week against some of the world's best teams in the FIVB Volleyball Nations League Finals in Chicago.
The U.S. Men (9-6 in preliminary round play) open pool play on Wednesday (July 10) against France (11-4) at 5:30 p.m. PT. They will play Russia (12-3) on Friday at 6 p.m. PT. Matches will be shown live on FloVolleyball.tv. Sunday's gold medal match will be shown on the Olympic Channel.
U.S. Head Coach John Speraw is excited to see the team in action this weekend. "I think the guys are enjoying the familiarity," Speraw said. "But the opportunity to play some young guys and give some old guys some rest has been beneficial. The question is, have we had enough time to train to be as efficient as we were at the end of last summer at the World Championships?"
The U.S. pool for the Finals includes all three teams that earned medals at the 2018 VNL Finals: Russia took the gold, France the silver and the U.S. Men won bronze after beating Brazil 3-0. The other pool includes defending Olympic champion and world No. 1 ranked Brazil, defending world champion Poland and Asian champion Iran, which finished second in the preliminary round.
"I think this tournament is a great event," Speraw said. "It's a great opportunity for us to go out there and compete against great competition especially as we look forward to the rest of the summer and the Olympic qualification tournaments."
U.S. Men's Roster for VNL Finals in Chicago
1 Matt Anderson (Opp, 6-9, West Seneca, N.Y., Penn State)
2 Aaron Russell (OH, 6-9, Ellicott City, Md., Penn State)
3C Taylor Sander (OH, 6-4, Huntington Beach, Calif., BYU)
4 Jeff Jendryk (MB, 6-10, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola of Chicago)
7 Kawika Shoji (S, 6-3, Honolulu, Hawaii, Stanford)
11 Micah Christenson (S, 6-6, Honolulu, Southern California)
12 Max Holt (MB, 6-10, Cincinnati, Ohio, Penn State)
13 Ben Patch (Opp, 6-8, Provo, Utah, BYU)
14 Micah Ma'a (S, 6-3, Kaneohe, Hawaii, UCLA)
17 Thomas Jaeschke (OH, 6-6, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola of Chicago)
18 Garrett Muagututia (OH, 6-5, Oceanside, Calif., UCLA)
20 David Smith (MB, 6-7, Saugus, Calif., UC Irvine)
22 Erik Shoji (L, 6-0, Honolulu, Hawaii, Stanford)
30 George Huhmann (MB, 6-11, St. Louis, Mo., Princeton)