USA Volleyball on Wednesday unveiled the roster of 12 players that it will send to the U20 Pan American Cup in May. There, the team will vie to be the top-finishing NORCECA squad (the club includes North American and South American teams) that isn’t the Dominican Republic. Doing so would mean a spot for the United States at the 2017 FIVB Volleyball U20 World Championships. Those U20 World Championships will be held from July 14th-23rd in Boca del Rio and Cordoba, Mexico.
The Americans could alternatively qualify as one of 5 teams selected via world rankings as of January 1, 2017. Currently ranked 15th in the world, that would favor, but not assure, the Americans of a spot at the World Championships.
In either case, if the Americans do, in fact, advance to the World Championships, USA Volleyball has not guaranteed that they will dance with the ones that got them there, so-to-speak.
While the Pan American Cup team was decided on the basis of a March open tryout, USA Volleyball will hold one more tryout to see who will make the 12-player squad for Worlds. The players on the Pan American team will at least be guaranteed a spot in that training camp though, alongside others identified at the open tryout and high performance tryouts this spring.
With 5 members of the team now named to two-straight major U20 rosters, Brionne Butler, Paige Hammons, Thayer Hall, Madison Lilley, and Mackenzie May, a continued run of good play in Costa Rica should give them a good chance at continuing to the World Championships.
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