Three former Nebraska volleyball players are in the running to compete for the United States in next month's Pan American Cup.
USA Volleyball released its preliminary 25-player roster for the tournament this week. Huskers Justine Wong-Orantes (libero), Kadie Rolfzen (outside hitter) and Kelly Hunter (setter) will compete for a spot on the final roster. Wong-Orantes recently competed for USA during the team's stop in Lincoln for the FIVB Volleyball Nations League in May.
Rolfzen most recently was on the preliminary roster for the Volleyball Nations League in April. Twin sister, Amber, competed in the 2017 Pan American Cup.
For Hunter this represents her first chance to compete internationally for the women's national team, but she's plenty familiar with USA Volleyball. In high school she competed as part of the youth national team and has also taken part in USA Volleyball's High Performance Pipeline.
Nebraska was one of three schools to land three former players on the preliminary roster. Penn State and Minnesota were the others. Two other Big Ten players, setters Jordyn Poulter (a senior at Illinois) and Lauren Carlini (Wisconsin), also made the preliminary roster giving the conference 11 spots on the 25-player roster.
If you happen to be in the vicinity of Irvine, California, later this week you'll have an opportunity to watch the three former Huskers in action. USA Volleyball is hosting a Red-Blue scrimmage scheduled for 7 p.m. PT at Irvine Valley College.
Tickets are $5 and available at the door.
The Grab Bag
- Dan Wolken of USA Today writes on the recent controversy over Mike Leach's tweets.
- College baseball appears close to adding instant replay for the Regional rounds of the tournament in the future.
- Andrea Adelson of ESPN on Lane Kiffin's "Charlie Weis Jr. Experiment."
- ICYMI: Recruiting analyst Greg Smith put up his early list of visitors for this week's Friday Night Lights camp. We'll be updating that throughout the week.
Today's Song of Today
Brandon is the Managing Editor for Hail Varsity and has covered Nebraska athletics for the magazine and web since 2012, Hail Varsity’s first season on the scene. His sports writing has also been featured by Fox Sports, The Guardian and CBS Sports.
