The USA women, 2-0 in the third round of Volleyball Nations League, have Friday off before facing Italy on Saturday.
The Americans, an OIympic bid long in hand, got a huge performance from Jordan Thompson and a boost from the continued return of Annie Drews and Kelsey Cook.
Canada, however, had a wildly different couple of days. First the Canadians, still hoping for an Olympic spot, pulled off a reverse sweep over Japan on Wednesday. But Thursday they got swept by their closest rivals for that bid to Paris, the Netherlands, and are very much in limbo.
The USA improved to 6-4 overall in VNL and is in sixth place after its 25–21, 26–20, 25–22 over the Netherlands (6-5) Fukuoka, Japan.
Drews led with 10 kills, a block and two aces. Dana Rettke had 10 kills, two blocks and an ace. Cook added 11 kills and two aces and Chiaka Ogbogu had nine kills and three blocks. The USA had five aces with eight serving errors and hit .320.
The Netherlands, which got 10 kills and two blocks from Nova Marring, were coming of a huge 25-24, 25-16, 25-23 sweep of Canada that left Canada 6-5 and in ninth place. To read more, click here for the recap on Volleyball World.
The top seven teams plus host Thailand advance to the VNL finals in Bangkok.
