USA Volleyball : Top-Ranked United States Beats Soviets in Three Games

The match between the world’s top two men’s volleyball teams provided all the intensity that was billed, despite the top-ranked United States defeating the Soviet Union in three games Tuesday night in the Gatorade USA Volleyball Cup.

The U.S. team won, 15-2, 15-9, 15-11, before a crowd of 3,156 in the Forum.

The United States started strong, with Craig Buck reeling off 10 straight points on his serve in the first game. That brought the Americans to 13-1.

The Soviets managed one more point, on a service ace by Pavel Moissejenko, but the United States won the game with a kill by Bob Ctvrtlik.

The second game seemed an endless exchange of side-outs--neither team sustained any meaningful attack.

The Soviets ran to a 5-2 lead before the U.S. team fought back, mainly with ferocious play at the net. Steve Timmons and Buck were the mainstays there.

The U.S. rally started when Doug Partie served an ace to bring the United States to within one. A kill by Buck tied it, 6-6.

Team captain Karch Kiraly won two service points to give the Americans a lead they never relinquished.

In the first match, France defeated Canada, 15-6, 15-9, 15-13.

The Canadian national team, a last-minute replacement for Argentina, arrived at 3 a.m. Tuesday. The Canadians were on a tour with Cuba and had to leave some of their regular players in Canada to finish the tour. Canada dressed only seven players.

The French, ranked No. 4 in the world, simply overpowered the smaller, more fatigued Canadians. Especially dominating was 6-foot 5-inch Eric Bouvier, who had 23 kills.

Canadian Coach Brian Watson said he abandoned his team’s own fund-raising tour and brought his best team to this tournament in order to aid the cause of North American volleyball.

“We’ve always worked with each other,” Watson said. “They have a TV contract, they’ve got the three best teams here, then they have a team pull out. It wouldn’t have done volleyball any good. It took us about three days to get it all together.”

The Canadians have at least two players arriving today from the match with the Cubans in Quebec City.

In the meantime, they seem happy enough to be here, even if they are crashing the party.