Volleyball Team Passes Torch, Nearly Drops It

The storyline called for the U.S. national volleyball team to dispatch South Korea with ease Friday night, as the Americans had done to their first two opponents in the Brown Jordan USA Cup.

Something along the lines of Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons, 48 hours from retirement, being rested, the next generation getting a chance, and then it would be on to the finals tonight.

But South Korea won the first game, and Kiraly and Timmons had to come off the bench to help the United States win, 10-15, 15-5, 15-13, 15-3, in the round-robin tournament at UC Irvine’s Bren Center.

“I would have preferred them to make a cameo appearance,” Coach Bill Neville said of Kiraly and Timmons, the centerpieces of the U.S. team that has won two straight Olympic gold medals. “But I take some responsibility. I don’t think I had them (the team) ready to play.

“I guess we’re all a little romantic. I would have liked the young guys to demonstrate to the two guys leaving that they are passing the torch. But we never got the torch lighted. We had the torch in our hands, but it got cold.”

A first-game ankle injury will keep Jon Root out of action for at least three weeks, but there were signs to cheer Neville. Chris Braun, a 6-foot-6 Stanford graduate, replaced Root and played well as the United States qualified for a shot at its sixth USA Cup in as many years tonight at the Forum.

“I’ll tell you right now,” Neville said. “He’s going to be a force by 1992. He’s a little one-dimensional right now, but he learned the game backwards. Everyone said what a great athlete he was at Stanford, but he hasn’t learned the fundamentals yet.”

Braun seems to be getting by, though, especially for someone whose first love growing up was basketball.

“Nobody we have faced in the world has learned how to stop this guy offensively,” Neville said. “He’s got tremendous potential.”

Said Braun, smiling: “I’m a typical project player.”

The United States will make the investment, assigning assistant Coach Brad Saindon as a personal tutor, in much the same way Neville helped a rising star named Timmons earlier this decade. Braun, who was recruited by several Division I schools to play basketball, including UC Irvine and Fresno State, has only been with the national team since 1987, a short time made even shorter by his lack of experience in the game before college.

“It’s tough to learn as you go,” he said after the match. “If you don’t take command of a situation, you can find it tough to play. But, I love to play the game.”

Maybe enough to make him look like a volleyball player, plain and simple.

“Volleyball is my first love now,” Braun said. “This year, I think I made the transition from a basketball player who plays volleyball to someone who is just a volleyball player.”

The Soviet Union had far less trouble winning the second match Friday night, sweeping Brazil, 15-12, 15-5, 15-7, to earn a berth in tonight’s final against the United States at 7.