A couple of former Huskers will get another chance to represent the United States this weekend.
Kadie Rolfzen and Justine Wong-Orantes made the 14-woman roster for this weekend’s exhibition matches against Canada as USA prepares for the upcoming Pan-American Games.
The matches will take place on Friday (Tustin, California) and Saturday (Murrieta, California) with both set to begin at 7 p.m. PT.
The roster for the Pan-American Cup Training Team consists primarily of some recent college graduates as well as a few players who are still in school, many of which should be familiar faces to Husker fans.
- Setter (2): Madison Lilley (Kentucky), Sam Seliger-Swenson (Minnesota)
- Outsides (4): Roni Jones-Perry (BYU), Simone Lee (Penn State), Kathryn Plummer (Stanford), Kadie Rolfzen (Nebraska)
- Opposites (2): Sherridan Atkinson (Purdue), Danielle Cuttino (Purdue)
- Middles (4): Rachael Adams (Texas), Brionne Butler (Texas), Jenna Rosenthal (Marquette), Hannah Tapp (Minnesota)
- Liberos (2): Gabby Curry (Kentucky), Justine Wong-Orantes (Nebraska)
St. Mary’s coach Rob Browning will coach the team with Laurie Corbelli and Tayyiba Haneef-Park as his assistants, Justin Chang as his technical coordinator and John Xie as the team leader.
Rolfzen and Wong-Orantes were selected to the preliminary 30-player roster for the ongoing Volleyball Nations League, but unlike fellow former Huskers Jordan Larson, Kelsey Robinson and Mikaela Foecke, they did not make the cut-down to 25.
Even so, five players currently in the USA program stacks up favorably with almost any other school in the country.
“It’s a testament to what John Cook does and what the Husker program does,” Robinson said during the Volleyball Nations League pod in Lincoln. “They create all-around players and they teach the full game to every single player. I think that’s the disconnect from college to pro is that not every school is teaching girls how to play volleyball all the way around. When you get to the pro level, there’s not as many subs and you have to be able to do every skill. I think that’s why you see Nebraska Huskers being so successful because they know how to play every single part of the game.”
Later this month, the Pan-American Cup Training Team will hold an intra-squad scrimmage on June 28 in California which will follow the Collegiate National Team’s intra-squad scrimmage. The Pan-American Cup will take place July 4-15 in Lima, Peru.
Jacob Padilla has been writing for Hail Varsity since 2015. He covers football, volleyball men’s basketball and prep sports. He also co-hosts the Nebraska Preps Postgame and Nebraska Shootaround podcasts for the Hurrdat Media and Hail Varsity podcast networks. His love of basketball can best be described as an obsession and if you need to find him, he’s probably in a gym somewhere watching, coaching or playing hoops.
