UKRAINE 🇺🇦vs USA 🇺🇸 | HIGHLIGHTS | Men's VNL 2025
Ukraine is in its first year in VNL and thus picked up its first-ever win against the young U.S. team. First-year head coach Karch Kiraly started 2024 Olympian Jeff Jendryk at middle blocker, Andrew Rowan at setter, Cooper Robinson and Jordan Ewert at outside hitter, Gabi Garcia at opposite, Merrick McHenry in the middle, and Kyle Dagostino at libero. Rowan, Robinson and McHenry were all making their VNL debuts.
From the beginning of the match, Ukraine used a strong serve to keep the U.S. off balance. That, along with several U.S. errors in set one, gave Ukraine the advantage it needed to win 25-22. Robinson led the U.S. in the set with six points on five kills and a block.
The U.S. kept with Ukraine in set two, down just one at 15-14, but Ukraine went on a 10-5 run to win 25-20. Kiraly spoke about his team’s performance in an interview with VBTV after set two.
“We’re just making not smart plays,” he said. “You got a little setter and a big middle, and we hit at the big middle instead of the little setter; pretty simple geometry there. [We have to] clean up our reception game a little, too, and keep the ball on our side of the net more. We’ve got some good hitters to set, but if we’re getting aced or passing over, that doesn’t help us at all. I can’t say I like a lot right now. but this is a part of the process. Everybody’s got to have their first VNL match, and it’s not always going to be pretty. That’s the beauty of the process. There’s lots of ugly and lots of struggle.”
The team responded in set three with better overall play, and jumped out to an early 10-5 lead. Ukraine began to crawl back, scoring four straight to make it 10-9. No one could grab the edge the rest of the match, until Ukraine broke the 23-23 deadlock for a 25-23 win.
Garcia and Robinson both finished the match with 13 points. Garcia had 10 kills, two blocks and an ace, and Robinson had 12 kills and a block. Ewert had seven kills; and McHenry had six points on three kills, two blocks and an ace. Champlin scored four points (one kill, two blocks, one ace), and Rowan had a block.