Team USA Women’s Concludes China Tour with 5-3 mark

 

NANJING, China, April 2, 2008.- The USA Women’s National Training Team finished a tour playing against China clubs with a 5-3 record following a 25-22, 25-23, 25-22 victory over JiangSu on Wednesday.

 

The USA victory evened the two-match series with JiangSu, which won Tuesday’s match in four sets (25-20, 26-28, 25-23, 25-20).

 

Team USA's three-week training tour of China was designed to allow the coaches to evaluate a younger group of players in preparation for Olympic Games roster selections. The USA qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games by finishing with a bronze medal at the 2007 FIVB World Cup.

 

'This was a good final match for us in China against a challenging team,' USA Women's National Team Head Coach 'Jenny' Lang Ping said.

 

The Americans started their eight-match tour losing twice to the Tianjin Club by score of 25-22, 25-21, 25-21 on March 21 and 23-25, 21-25, 25-16, 25-21, 15-9 the following day.

 

They went on to win their next four matches against Chinese Army and ZheJian Club in four different cities.

 

The young USA squad took a four-set 21-25, 25-21, 25-19, 26-24 win over the strong Chinese Army team and won an even closer match two days later by score of 23-25, 25-17, 26-24, 21-25, 15-13.

 

The victories over ZheJiang took the same path. The Americans first won 19-25, 25-17, 27-25, 25-21 and then needed five sets to prevail by score of 15-25, 25-16, 25-22, 23-25, 15-10.