BLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech volleyball's libero Carol Raffety and right-side hitter Jaila Tolbert have earned a tryout with the U.S. Women's National Team Friday-Sunday at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with 213 other athletes vying for spots into the elite high performance pipeline.
The tryout starts on Friday and will consist of athletes from 88 colleges across the country competing for spots on the U.S. Women's National Team and the U.S. Collegiate National Team program, as well as the U.S. Women's Junior National Team that will compete in the 2019 FIVB Women's U20 World Championship. The breakdown for the tryout includes 58 outside hitters, 45 liberos, 42 setters, 41 middles and 29 opposites.
U.S. Women's National Team head coach Karch Kiraly will direct the entire tryout process. The list of athletes attending the tryout can be viewed clicking here.
This will be Tolbert's second trip to the tryout, making the U.S. Collegiate National Team – Detroit last summer, while this will be Raffety's first.
The tryout will involve four sessions with three waves per session. Friday's first session goes from 2-8 p.m. MT, while Saturday's sessions are at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. The final session on Sunday begins at 7:30 a.m. MT with tournament style play, along with 16-18 athletes selected by the U.S. Women's National Team staff to participate in a "USA" training session. The Sunday session wraps up at 10:30 a.m. MT.
All sessions minus the USA training session on Sunday morning will be streamed live by clicking here. USA Volleyball will use #USAVtryout as the event hashtag for photos, notes, quotes and stories posted to its social media platforms Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram under the handle @usavolleyball.
Selected athletes for the U.S. Women's National Team may begin their training in Anaheim, California, as early as the spring of 2019, or when an athlete's scholastic or professional club season has concluded.
Was the fastest player to score 1,000 points in program history doing so in 51 games
The U.S. Collegiate National Team program has three competition options:
U.S. Women's Collegiate National Team – World University Games, Italy, June 30-July 14
U.S. Women's Collegiate National Team – Japan, May 19-30
U.S. Women's Collegiate National Team – Anaheim, Calif., June 23-29
Selections for the U.S. Collegiate National Teams will be made by the end of March.
