As the USA women head back to Anaheim to regroup before revealing its Olympic roster this week and then resuming Volleyball Nations League on June 11, the second round of the men’s competition begins Tuesday.
The USA men –with a completely different roster than week one — open play in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, against Argentina, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
The second round began in Fukuoka, Japan, with Brazil sweeping Germany before Poland beat Bulgaria. Japan was then playing Iran.
Later Tuesday in Ottawa, Canada plays Cuba. All matches can be seen on Volleyball World TV.
The Americans play Italy on Thursday, Serbia on Friday, and then Canada on Saturday.
When the USA contingent went to Antalya, Türkiye, and finished 1-3 in the first round, none of the players on the Olympic roster went. For that matter, nor did head coach John Speraw, who sent Andy Read in his place.
For this round, however, it’s the Paris squad. The Olympic roster allows for 12 players and one official alternate. For VNL, you can take 14 and all are eligible for that round. In this case, that includes the alternate, Kyle Ensing, and one player not on the Olympic roster, Kyle Dagostino:
No. Player (Position, Height, Hometown, College)
1. Matt Anderson (OPP, 6-10, West Seneca, N.Y., Penn State)
2. Aaron Russell (OH, 6-9, Ellicott City, Md., Penn State)
4. Jeff Jendryk (MB, 6-10, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola Univ. Chicago)
5. Kyle Ensing (OPP, 6-7, Valencia, Calif., Long Beach State)
8. T.J. DeFalco (OH, 6-5, Huntington Beach, Calif., Long Beach State)
10. Kyle Dagostino (L, 5-9, Tampa, Florida, Stanford)
11. Micah Christenson (S, 6-5, Honolulu, Hawaii, USC)
12. Max Holt (MB, 6-10, Cincinnati, Ohio, Penn State)
14. Micah Ma’a (S, 6-3, Kaneohe, Hawaii, UCLA)
17. Thomas Jaeschke (OH, 6-6, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola Chicago)
18. Garrett Muagututia (OH, 6-5, Oceanside, Calif., UCLA)
19. Taylor Averill (MB, 6-7, San Jose, Calif., Hawai’i)
20. David Smith (MB, 6-7, Saugus, Calif., UC Irvine)
22. Erik Shoji (L, 6-0, Honolulu, Hawaii, Stanford)
Head Coach: John Speraw
Assistant Coaches: Matt Fuerbringer
Second Assistants: Javier Weber, Erik Sullivan
Performance Analyst and Technical Coordinator: Nate Ngo
Athletic Trainer: Aaron Brock
Strength and Conditioning Coach: Tim Pelot
Team Manager: David Dantes
