A month ago, we already write an article about the World Volleyball Championship and all the college volleyball players who were active here. Check out the article here! Meanwhile, the tournament is over and we would like to look back with you one more time, on the most special and memorable moments.
Volleyball has been extremely popular in the Netherlands for years, more and more boys and girls choose to play volleyball. As a result, college volleyball is also becoming increasingly popular in the Netherlands. The popularity of the sport was clearly visible during the World Cup (which was partly organized in our own country). Full stands full of enthusiastic support.
World Cup Volleyball
After one hundred matches played, Serbia could call itself world volleyball champion 2022 on October 15. The win was not very surprising, as the country has been a world leader in women’s volleyball for years, along with other superpowers such as Brazil and the United States. Below we tell you more about the course of the tournament.
The games Poland – Croatia and Netherlands – Kenya formed the starting signal for the tournament just under a month ago. With a convincing win for the Netherlands against Kenya and Cameroon (both 3-0 victory), the Dutch formation faced more opposition for the first time in the match against Puerto Rico and the first opponent with former college volleyball players in the selection. But with a 3-1 victory, the third match was also won. However, they then lost to Belgium and Italy. With three wins and two losses the first round was concluded.
The World Cup would end in disappointment for the Netherlands at last, the Netherlands being eliminated in the second round and finishing in 12th place.
USA – Canada
If there was one match at the World Cup with many girls with a past in the college volleyball world, it is the match Team USA against Team Canada. Where the entire U.S. team is made up of (former) college volleyball players, so is more than half of Canada. With top universities Stanford, Michigan State University, Hawaii and Florida State, there is brute force on the court during this match. America wins the match quite easily, 3-0. Curious about the match? Check out the highlights below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7l0QZ-watk
Statistics
Looking back on the tournament, there are also some nice statistics to note. A total of 100 matches were played, which were visited by a total of 231,515 people. Which comes down to an average of 2,315 visitors per match. However, there were also some big ups and downs. For example, the match between the Netherlands and Belgium was visited by 10,000 people, but only 101 people attended the Thailand-Canada match.
A striking fact: Brazil won the most number of points (1057) of all participating countries during the tournament, however, it also lost the most points (908) of everyone.
Andrea Drews is outside hitter of the U.S. team and alumni of Purdue University, the American was the university’s star player between 2012 and 2015 and had numerous awards to her name as well as several impressive records, such as the 25th player to reach 1,000 kills. Since graduating, she has already made her mark in the jersey of different teams and in different countries. During the last World Cup, she could call herself the best server, hitting a total of eighteen aces in all matches.
It was a special World Cup. Partly because the tournament took place in the Netherlands. But also because of the large number of former college players that participated, making the impact of college volleyball even more visible. Our own Ron Zwerver was also present at several matches during the World Cup. He himself played on the Dutch men’s volleyball team that finished second in 1994. And if that wasn’t enough, he was also named best spiker that tournament.
Want to know more about the World Volleyball Championship, check this page for all the information. Want to learn more about college volleyball or become a student-athlete yourself? Reach out! Then we’ll look together at your options, which college is the best fit for you or tell you more about the path from college student to World Volleyball.
