U.S. Volleyball Team Earns ‘A’ Against Japan : Volleyball: Squad opens its World League schedule with a three-game victory.

You kept hearing the whispers a year ago. You watched the World League volleyball entry from the U.S. and the common observation was heard again and again.

“This,” they said, “is the ‘B’ Team.”

Saturday night at the Sports Arena, the “A” team showed up, and they brought with them Mr. T.

Steve Timmons, who has plenty of Olympic medals to hang around his neck, competed in his first U.S. men’s national team match since July 1, 1990, was voted the squad’s most valuable player and led the U.S. to a 15-3, 15-7, 15-13 victory over Japan in front of 3,290.

Timmons had 14 kills and three blocks in an evenly distributed offense, but he got some help from Bob Samuelson, who had 16 kills and four blocks, and two-time NCAA player of the year Bryan Ivie (15 kills, one block).

It marked the first competition for the team that will represent the United States in the Barcelona Games, in which they will face Japan in their first match.

Timmons is trying to win his third gold medal. Other returning players from the 1988 gold medal team are Bob Ctvrtlik, Jeff Stork and Doug Partie, all of whom played in Italy in the interim. They join Fortune and Eric Sato, giving the U.S. six Olympians on this squad.

Another Olympian, Craig Buck, is expected to give Coach Fred Sturm his final decision on retirement Monday.

The common buzzword Saturday was firepower, and the U.S. showed plenty of it.

The U.S. scored the first 12 points of the match and needed just 21 minutes to win Game 1, 15-3. So dominant were the Americans that it wasn’t until Japan’s 11th serve that they scored, and it was in that series that they scored all three points. They failed to score on six additional serves in the game.

Japan bolted to a 4-0 lead in Game 2, and the next time they scored, they trailed 9-5. The U.S. victory took 20 minutes.

“We definitely had our ups and downs,” Ctvrtlik said. “We have to get rid of our negative streaks. In ‘88, we made mistakes, but we didn’t make them in bunches.

“We have tremendous power and a better block than we had in ’88. We have to work on giving up just one point instead of two, three or four points at a time.”

Samuelson was on last year’s World League team (6-10) which finished third in its pool. He said the Americans are twice as good as they were a year ago at this time.

“I don’t even think it’s fair to compare us,” Samuelson said. “Ctvrtlik is one of the best hitters in the world, Stork is the best setter in the world and Timmons was the MVP from the Olympics. Think of how long we’ve been in the gym (three weeks). This is the first match we’ve ever played--there’s nowhere to go but up.”

Although they’ll do it against better competition.

Said Timmons, “I think the Japanese right now are probably as bad as their (green and white) uniforms.”

Sturm said his focus was on how his team played, not the Japanese.

“I’m concerned with the little things, our organization, our communication, our execution,” he said beforehand.

Afterward, he said it was a good effort.

“There are a few wrinkles to iron out,” Sturm said, “but I saw a lot of positive things.”

One reason, Timmons said, is because the Olympic veterans provide some stability.

“We (veteran players) have such established roles,” he said. “(The younger players’) role becomes more defined and they can concentrate on their game. Once we know our role on the team, we’ll play even better.”