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Former Lions Continue to Impress National Team
April 9, 2008
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Former Lions Heather Hughes, Sarah Noriega and Danalee Corso continue to progress and impress as part of the U.S. National Team program. Hughes recently concluded an eight-match exhibition tour of China, on which Team USA finished with a 5-3 record. Noriega, a 2000 U.S. Olympian attempting to make a comeback, was assigned by the National Team to play for the Caguas Criollas of the Puerto Rican Super League. Corso was recently hired to handle vital parts of the USA Volleyball beach program. Hughes had her best game over the China tour on March 24 against the Chinese Army team. The U.S. Women's National Training team, using a balanced offense, came back to win 21-25, 25-21, 25-19, 26-24 in the match, while Hughes led the U.S. offense with 16 points on 15 kills via 27 attacks and an ace. In addition, she recorded kills on 56 percent of her attacks during the victory. In the opening match of the tour, Hughes contributed eight kills on 25 swings with two errors, en route to 10 points as the U.S. fell to Tianjin. Following that performance, Head Coach "Jenny" Lang Ping said, "I think some of the players showed us some things. Nicole [Davis] is a team leader, Tracy Stalls and Heather [Hughes] played well, too. Even though we lost in three, the score was very tight and we can see the two months of training result and I think we have better ball control." In a match against Tianjin on March 22, Hughes chipped in 11 kills on 34 attacks to go with a block as the team dropped a five-set heartbreaker. Hughes chalked up seven kills and an ace for eight points en route to helping the U.S. to a 3-1 victory over ZheJiang, a professional Chinese club team, on March 28. Hughes charted seven kills and an ace for eight points as the team went on to lose to Jiangsu on April 1. Hughes finished the eight-match stretch with another double-digit point showing, collecting 10 points with eight kills and two blocks in a victory over JiangSu on April 2.
Noriega totaled 10 points for Caguas Criollas in a Puerto Rican Super League quarterfinal victory (25-23, 27-25, 25-16) over Llaneras de Toa Baja. She reached double-figure points with nine kills, one block and nine digs with just one attack error. Noriega scored 18 points (15 kills, two blocks, one ace) in Caguas' second quarterfinal match, a 25-17, 20-25, 25-16, 25-15 victory over Juncos. In other U.S. Volleyball news that pertains to LMU, Corso was hired as USA Volleyball's technical coordinator and master coach for the beach volleyball program. Corso will work closely with USA Volleyball director of beach programs Ali Wood and serve as the junior national team coach as well as provide technical assistance to the elite athletes who represent the United States in international competition. Among her duties will be organizing youth and junior beach volleyball performance camps and coordinating the selection and training of youth and junior athletes for international tournaments. Corso will be called upon to begin developing an education program to certify and train beach volleyball coaches, similar to USA Volleyball's already successful Coaching Accreditation Program for indoor coaches. Corso is the owner of the Aloha Ball Beach Volleyball School along with her husband Brian. She has been coaching beach volleyball since 1993 and has worked with teams that have competed both on the AVP Tour and represented the United States internationally including Rachel Wacholder/Tyra Turner, Suzanne Stonebarger/Michelle More and Nicole Branagh/Angie Akers among others. Corso played collegiately at Loyola Marymount from 1989-92, where she also attained a bachelor's degree in business. She has played beach volleyball on the FIVB, AVP and WPVA tours. She also played indoor volleyball professionally in France. Corso was a First Team All-WCC selection in her senior season at LMU in 1992, while also serving as the team captain. |
