{"id":3584,"date":"2009-07-10T05:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T05:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/usa-volleyball-men-s-team-will-face-improved-italian-squad\/"},"modified":"2009-07-10T05:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-10T05:10:00","slug":"usa-volleyball-men-s-team-will-face-improved-italian-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/usa-volleyball-men-s-team-will-face-improved-italian-squad","title":{"rendered":"USA Volleyball: Men’s Team Will Face Improved Italian Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/p>\n

Photo of Lee courtesy FIVB<\/span><\/p>\n

The Long Beach State alum-laden U.S. Men\u2019s National Volleyball Team finds itself in a must-win situation this weekend when it plays Italy at the 2009 FIVB World League matches at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates, Ill.  <\/span>The U.S. Men, No. 2 in the world, lead World League Pool A with a 6-2 record. But No. 6 Italy is hot on its trail at 5-3 having just swept visiting Netherlands twice on July 3 and 5.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are definitely looking forward to playing in the U.S. again,\u201d said U.S. Head Coach Alan Knipe, who is currently on leave from LBSU. \u201cI know they had great crowds in Hoffman Estates for World League last year, so we are really looking forward to seeing a lot of fans of both the U.S. and Italy.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Team USA defeated Italy twice when the two teams played in Italy on June 19 and 21. The scores were 3-1 (25-21, 30-28, 21-25, 25-21) and 3-1 (25-19, 18-25, 25-22, 25-20). The United States is now 22-37 against Italy since 1981.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think Italy will be much improved from when we faced them,\u201d Knipe said. \u201cWe will need to play our best volleyball.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

And they’ll need a lot of help from David Lee, Paul Lotman, and Scott Touzinsky, three of Knipe’s former 49ers, if they want to play at their top level.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

2009 U.S. World League Roster for July 10-11<\/o:p><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

2 Sean Rooney (OH, 6-9, Wheaton, Ill., Pepperdine) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

3 Evan Patak (Opp, 6-8, Pleasanton, Calif., UC Santa Barbara) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

4 David Lee (MB, 6-8, Alpine, Calif., Long Beach State) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

5 Rich Lambourne (L, 6-3, Tustin, Calif., BYU) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

6 Paul Lotman (OH, 6-7, Lakewood, Calif., Long Beach State)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

7 Donald Suxho (S, 6-5, Korce, Albania, USC) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

8 Andrew Hein (MB, 6-11, Carol Stream, Ill., Pepperdine) <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

13 Clay Stanley (Opp, 6-9, Honolulu, Hawai\u2019i, Hawai\u2019i)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

14 Kevin Hansen (S, 6-5, Newport Beach, Calif., Stanford)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

15 Russell Holmes (MB, 6-8, Fountain Valley, Calif., BYU)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

16 Jayson Jablonsky (OH, 6-5, Yorba Linda, Calif., UC Irvine)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

18 Scott Touzinsky (OH, 6-6, St. Louis, Mo., Long Beach State)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Knipe and three of his 49ers are back in the USA to take on the Italians in must-win matches this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}