Jordan Larson, 7 other Olympians top USA women’s Volleyball Nations League roster

The USA Volleyball full women’s roster for this summer’s 2023 Volleyball Nations League includes eight players from the team that won gold in the Tokyo Olympics, many who were on the roster for VNL last summer, and some new faces.

Coach Karch Kiraly’s roster was announced Wednesday by Volleyball World. The VNL finals are in Arlington, Texas, in July.

Most significantly, Jordan Larson is back. 

Larson, the Nebraska star who has had a tremendous season for Milano in Italy this season, indicated after the 2021 Olympics the team captain would not return. But the veteran outside hitter is playing as well as ever and is ready to lead the USA again. Kiraly talked about Larson’s return in our interview last week.

The other outside hitters include fellow Olympian Kelsey Robinson-Cook (Nebraska), and three others who were on the VNL roster last summer, Ali Frantti (Penn State), Kara Bajema (Washington) and Kathryn Plummer (Stanford). Also in the outsides group are Simone Lee (Penn State), Avery Skinner (Kentucky) and Khalia Lanier (USC).

Jordyn Poulter (Illinois) is out recovering from major knee surgery, but the setter on the USA Olympic team, Micha Hancock (Penn State) is joined by Lauren Carlini (Wisconsin) and Jenna Gray (Stanford), who played VNL last summer. Also in the setter group are Ashley Evans (Purdue) and Tori Dilfer (Louisville).

Both Olympic opposites return in Annie Drews (Purdue) and Jordan Thompson (Cincinnati) and they’re joined by Danielle Cuttino (Purdue), who played VNL last summer, and Stepanie Samedy (Minnesota).

The middles include Olympians Haleigh Washington (Penn State) and Chiaka Ogbogu (Texas) and three others from last year’s VNL roster, Brionne Butler (Texas), Anna Stevenson-Hall (Louisville) and Dana Rettke (Wisconsin). New middles to the VNL rosters are Asjia O’Neal (Texas), Danielle Hart (Wisconsin), Madeleine Gates (Stanford) and Kayla Haneline (Northern Iowa).

Haneline and Thompson, are the other players on the roster not from Power 5 schools.

The liberos include Olympian Justine Wong-Orantes (Nebraska), 2022 VNL players Morgan Hentz (Stanford) and Kendall White (Penn State) and newcomer and Brooke Nuneviller (Oregon).

While only 12 players get chosen for the Olympics, in VNL teams can bring up to 18 players to each leg.

The USA women open play in Antalya, Turkey, where they play Serbia on May 31. 

Also in Turkey:

June 2 vs. Italy
June 3 vs. Korea
June 4 vs. Turkey

Then they move to Brasila, Brazil:

June 13 vs. Croatia
June 15 vs. Thailand
June 17 vs. Japan
June 18 vs. Brazil

And finish in Suwon, Korea:

June 28 vs. Poland
June 29 vs. Bulgaria
July 1 vs. Germany
July 2 vs. China

The finals are July 12-16 in Arlington, Texas. 

The full schedule for the 2023 VNL season can be found here.