USA Volleyball Cup : Americans Rally to Defeat French

Only volleyball purists and insomniacs witnessed the second match in the Gatorade USA Cup men’s volleyball tournament Wednesday night at the Forum.

It’s a shame. The United States and France gave a clinic on tenacious, head-to-head volleyball that played out until nearly midnight. The top-ranked U.S. team won, 13-15, 15-12, 15-5, 15-4.

What remained of an earlier crowd of 2,563 partisan fans cheered every point for the Americans.

The United States was led by the power hitting of Karch Kiraly, Steve Timmons and Craig Buck.

The last time these teams met was at a tournament in the Soviet Union last month. France beat the United States, three games to two, although the U.S. team won the tournament.

The French are playing without setter Alain Fabiani, who has an arm injury. Fabiani, 29, was voted the best setter at last year’s world championships. Good news for the team was the return of Philippe Blain, a key passer.

Play in the round-robin tournament resumes Friday, when the United States plays Canada and France plays the Soviet Union.

In the earlier match, the Soviet Union beat Canada, 13-15, 15-11, 15-11, 15-12.

The Canadians, last-minute replacements for Argentina, had only seven players Tuesday night. But they got reinforcements when two more arrived Wednesday.

It helped. Not only was Canada better than it had been against France, but the Soviets were much improved over the sluggish team that was trounced by the United States.

Just ask Gennadi Parsin, the Soviet coach. For pure gab, Parsin has no peer in American coaching. Asked one question at the start of a postmatch press conference, Parsin launched into a dissertation on the state of international volleyball, the best age for players and why the Netherlands will be a surprise qualifier for next year’s Olympic Games.

Among his musings:

--”The optimum age to get best results is 24-28 years. This is true for male volleyball players.”

Women volleyball players, according to Parsin, “ripen” earlier.

--”I may not say that all the best players in the world are on our team. We must say that the candidates for laurels are from Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Czechoslovakia, France and Italy. But the USA is now in its best hour, its best era.”

--”A great and pleasant surprise for us was the Netherlands team. They are trained by your compatriot, Ari Selinger (former U.S. women’s Olympic coach). He has selected good players on his team. If he had at his disposal a great dispatcher, his team would be very good. There are figures concerning their team--the smallest is (6 feet 5 inches), the tallest is (6-11)--this does not mean they are basketballers. There will be no surprise for me if this team would play in Korea after winning the qualification tournament in the Netherlands next year.”