Volleyball : Americans Breeze Past Canadians at Malibu

Buoyed by lively support from a crowd of 2,800 at Firestone Fieldhouse on the Pepperdine campus Wednesday night, the United States volleyball team breezed past the Canadian team, 15-2, 15-7, 15-5, and gave every indication that it is ready for the Pan American Games.

The U.S. team will be going into the competition at Indianapolis next week with a record of 26-5 in 1987, and Craig Buck, for one, thinks the U.S. team has to be considered the favorite.

Buck, one of three former Pepperdine players returning to his Malibu home court for the tuneup against the Canadians, has won gold medals with the U.S. team in the Olympic Games in 1984, the World Cup in ’85 and the World Championships in ’86. “We felt a little rusty tonight, I thought, because we’ve been a little bit gym-bound,” Bucks said. “We needed the competition. But I feel real good about the Pan Am Games. I think we’re the best in the world.”

U.S. Coach Marv Dunphy didn’t put it quite that strongly. But he did say that he had not had much doubt about the outcome of Wednesday night’s game. Dunphy, who is on leave of absence as Pepperdine coach, said that walking out onto the court felt like old times.

“We may not be head and shoulders above the rest of the world, but I get that feeling when I walk out with this USA team, especially here, where it seems like we’ve won so many games,” Dunphy said.

As for Canada? Well, this was a new, younger lineup. Not exactly the same team that gave the U.S. a pretty good game the last time out, with the Americans winning 15-6, 15-12, 16-18, 15-7.

If it had been a boxing match, Canada would have been shrugged off as “an opponent,” putting up just enough of a fight to make it interesting but not enough to dampen the home crowd’s spirit.

The U.S. team will open Pan Am competition next Wednesday against Brazil in what will be a rematch of the 1984 Olympic gold medal match.

Dunphy listed Brazil, along with Cuba and Argenina, as the teams mostly likely to give the Americans trouble in their quest for another gold medal.

Karch Kiraly, formerly of UCLA and a star of the U.S. team since the ’84 Olympics, has been out for two weeks since breaking a bone in his left hand. Dunphy said Kiraly might be able to return by the time the Pan Am playoff round begins.

Dunphy was pleased with the overall play of John Root, a former Stanford player who has been with the national team for just two years. “We passed better and we were able to run more combinations than Canada,” Dunphy said. “(Bob) Ctvrtlik, (Dave) Saunders and Root did a good job passing . . . “(Steve) Timmons had some good kills in the first game to get us off to a great start, and Buck had a few big blocks that seemed to intimidate their hitters.”