ATLANTA -- University of Texas Volleyball head coach Jerritt Elliott led his U.S. Women's National A2 Blue Team to a bronze medal in the Open Division of the USA Adult Open Volleyball Championships held in Atlanta. Elliott's club posted a 2-2 record in the four-day event.
The USA A2 Blue Team's Sydney Anderson (Salt Lake City, Utah) was selected to the all-tournament team, as well as Washington's Jenna Hagglund (West Chester, Ohio) and Tamari Miyashiro (Kaneohe, Hawai'i).
Elliott, the 2007 AVCA Central Region Coach of the Year is a two-time Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year and owns a 156-58 record in seven seasons at Texas and a 206-70 career record in nine years as a head coach. He has led the Longhorns to top-10 rankings in each of the past two seasons, including a No. 6 ranking in the final poll this past season.
The A2 Red Team captured the Open Division of the USA Adult Open Volleyball Championships defeating Huskies VBC, University of Washington's collegiate team, in the gold medal match. The U.S. won the first two sets before the Huskies rallied to win the third set. Behind the defense of libero Elena Martinez (New Orleans, La.) in the back row and Am'ra Solomon's (Los Angeles) net play, the U.S. recovered to win the fourth set.
The USA Volleyball High Performance pipeline A2 Teams have been competing in the Open Division since 2003. Its only other championship in the event was in 2004. The USA A2 Program is the only team with more than one Women's Open Division title in the last eight years.
The U.S. Women's National Training Team finished second to The Exterminators in its first Open competition in 2003, then rebounded to win the gold in 2004 in a rematch of the previous year's championship. In 2006, the USA Blue A2 finished second to The Exterminators at New Orleans. Last year, USA Red finished with the silver medal after falling to Westwood VBC (UCLA) in the finals.
USA Volleyball has showcased its USA Adult Open Volleyball Championships for 79 years since the organization's founding in 1928. Except for 1943 and 1944 during the height of World War II, the Open has been a mainstay celebrating adult volleyball nationally.
The event is one of the largest national championships in any sport in the United States, and the Open has featured the sport of volleyball from coast-to-coast.
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