Sports

U.S. Men Storm Back From Two Sets Down to Defeat Iran at 2025 VNL

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 12, 2025) – After dropping the first two sets, the U.S. Men’s National Team rallied to defeat a veteran Iran squad in its second match of the 2025 Volleyball Nations League, 3-2 (19-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-23, 17-15) on Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The final score of the deciding […]

Published

2 weeks ago

June 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 12, 2025) – After dropping the first two sets, the U.S. Men’s National Team rallied to defeat a veteran Iran squad in its second match of the 2025 Volleyball Nations League, 3-2 (19-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-23, 17-15) on Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The final score of the deciding set was the only two-point lead of the set. Outside hitter Jordan Ewert scored the go-ahead point on a kill at 15-15 and middle blocker Patrick Gasman closed out the reverse sweep with an ace.

After a day off, the U.S. (1-1) will next play Slovenia on Saturday, June 14, at 9:30 a.m. PDT. Watch the match live on VBTV.

The U.S. held a slight edge in kills (58-56) but the real difference was its 14-5 advantage in blocks. Though Iran served nine aces to the U.S. team’s four, six of those were in the opening set before the U.S. serve receive settled in.

“The guys have so much to be proud of. That was a true team effort,” said U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Karch Kiraly. “Lots of guys came in. Some people call those people waiting out ‘substitutes.’ We call them ‘game-changers,’ and every guy who came in changed the game in some way. All of us are learning together. It was great that we got better as that match went along.”

Opposite Kyle Hobus, playing for the U.S. Men’s National Team for the first time in this VNL, led the team with 17 kills and 19 points, adding two blocks. Ewert finished with 17 points on 16 kills and one block.

Middle blocker Merrick McHenry finished with seven blocks, two more than the entire Iran team, and contributed three kills to reach double figures with 10 points. Outside hitter Cooper Robinson also scored in double figures with 14 points on 13 kills and an ace.

Libero Mason Briggs led the team with seven digs and nine serve receptions, with his biggest pass coming on a sliding play that helped give the U.S. a 10-9 lead in the final set. Setter Quinn Isaacson came in to lead the offense in the third set and had a key kill in the deciding set.

“That win shows that we have a lot of passion with this group and no matter how much we are down, we are still fighting very hard,” Isaacson said. “There is a lot of fight and if we can continue that through the next four summers, we are going to be in a really good spot when we get to L.A. (for the 2028 Summer Olympics).”

Opposite Gabi Garcia joined middle blockers Gasman and Matthew Knigge with five points apiece. Garcia came in to provide strong serving, including a pair of aces to go with two kills and a block. Gasman recorded four kills before his match-clinching ace, while Knigge contributed two kills and three blocks.

Though the U.S. fell behind 2-0 by losing the second set, it started to build momentum by scoring five of the last seven points. Ewert scored seven points on six kills and a block in that second set.

Another strong finish to the third set, ending on a 7-2 run, propelled the U.S. comeback. Hobus scored five points on three kills and two blocks, Ewert recorded three kills, and McHenry posted a pair of blocks as he and Hobus teamed up for four of the team’s five blocks in the set.

A Garcia ace gave the U.S. a 20-17 lead in the fourth set, but Iran scored four of the next five points to even the set at 21 apiece. Iran completed a 6-2 run to take a 23-22 lead, but after a U.S. timeout, a service error evened the set at 23. From there, McHenry slowed down an attack at the net leading to a Hobus kill, and then ended the set on a block to send the match to a fifth set. Robinson (five) and Hobus (four) combined for nine kills in the set.

Isaacson’s kill and a Garcia block gave the U.S. a 6-5 lead in the final set. Though they would never relinquish the lead, the set would be tied 10 more times before the Ewert and Gasman heroics.

Seven U.S. players registered at least one kill in the fifth set with Hobus (four) and Ewert (three) leading the way. Hobus scored off the block to give the U.S. 11-10 and 12-11 leads. His final kill of the night made it 15-14.

U.S. Men’s Week One Roster for 2025 VNL

No. Name (Pos., Ht., Hometown, College, USAV Region)
3 Mason Briggs (L, 6-0, Long Beach, Calif., Long Beach State, Southern California)
4 Jeff Jendryk (MB, 6-10, Wheaton, Ill., Loyola Univ. Chicago, Great Lakes)
6 Quinn Isaacson (S, 6-2, Plainfield, Ill., Ball State, Great Lakes)
9 Gabi Garcia (OPP, 6-7, San Juan, Puerto Rico, BYU)
10 Kyle Dagostino (L, 5-9, Tampa, Florida, Stanford Univ., Florida)
15 Kyle Hobus (OPP, 6-7, San Pedro, Calif., CSUN, Southern California)
17 Andrew Rowan (S, 6-7, Trabuco Canyon, Calif., UCLA, Southern California)
18 Cooper Robinson (OH, 6-7, Pacific Palisades, Calif., UCLA, Southern California)
19 Patrick Gasman (MB, 6-10, Clovis, Calif., Univ. of Hawaii, Northern California)
23 Nolan Flexen (OH, 6-9, Rio Rancho, N.M., UC Irvine, Southern)
24 Merrick McHenry (MB, 6-7, Bedford, Texas, UCLA, North Texas)
25 Ethan Champlin (OH, 6-3, Oceanside, Calif., UCLA, Southern California)
28 Matthew Knigge (MB, 6-7, New Egypt, N.J., Vassar, Garden Empire)
29 Jordan Ewert (OH, 6-5, Antioch, Calif., Stanford, Northern California)

Head Coach:  Karch Kiraly
Assistant Coach: Luka Slabe
Assistant Coach: Javier Weber
Performance Analyst: Nate Ngo
Physiotherapist: Aaron Brock
Senior Strength and Conditioning Coach: Tim Pelot
Senior Sports Dietitian: Shawn Hueglin
Mental Performance Coach: Andrea Becker
Team Manager: David Dantes
Consultant Coach: Chris McGown
Consultant Coach: Marv Dunphy
Team Doctors:  Eugene Yim, Mark Hutchinson, Michael Shepard, Warren Young

U.S. Men’s Schedule for the 2025 Volleyball Nations League
Matches will be shown live and on-demand on VBTV, CBS Sports Network and Big Ten Network

(All times PDT)
Week 1: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June 11: Ukraine def. USA, 3-0 (25-22, 25-20, 25-23)
June 12 USA def. Iran, 3-2 (19-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-23, 17-15)
June 14 at 9:30 a.m. vs. Slovenia
June 15 at 1 p.m. vs. Cuba

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Sports

Ukrainian Swimmer Igor Chervynskiy, 3x World Championship Medalist, Injured in War with Russia

World Championship medalist and two-time Ukrainian Olympian Igor Chervynskiy has been “seriously wounded” in his country’s ongoing war with Russia, the Ukrainian Swimming Federation and fellow Olympian Sergiy Fesenko report to SwimSwam. The 43-year-old was serving a combat mission on the front lines of the ongoing war when he was injured. While the exact nature of […]

Published

2 minutes ago

June 25, 2025

Your Sports Nation

World Championship medalist and two-time Ukrainian Olympian Igor Chervynskiy has been “seriously wounded” in his country’s ongoing war with Russia, the Ukrainian Swimming Federation and fellow Olympian Sergiy Fesenko report to SwimSwam.

The 43-year-old was serving a combat mission on the front lines of the ongoing war when he was injured. While the exact nature of his injury has not been described, a photo shows him in a hospital bed with bandages on both legs and a metal medical device on his left leg. Fesenko says that he was hit by munitions dropped from a Russian drone.

Courtesy: Ukrainian Swimming Federation

Chervynskiy was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the country’s 6th largest-city with a pre-war population of 1.4 million. He was born there in 1981 when it was part of the USSR. That city near the Russian border has been a focal point of fighting in the war; as of April 2024, the Ukrainian government reported that almost a quarter of the city had been damaged or destroyed.

Chervynskiy was the 2003 World Championship silver medalist in the 1500 free and bronze medalist in the 800 free in Barcelona, part of Ukraine’s great distance swimming tradition. He was also the 1999 (SCM) and 2000 (LCM) European Champion in the 1500 free, two of five European medals in that event; a three-time World University Games Champion, the 2000 World Short Course Championship runner-up; and a three-time European Junior Champion in 1998 and 1999.

Prior to the start of the war, he was working as a swim coach at the youth sports school Spartak. Last year, at 42, and after two years of serving in the war, he won the Ukrainian Championship in the 5,000-meter swim in a 50 meter pool.

Fesenko called Chervynskiy “the hero of Ukraine” and is spearheading a fundraising effort to get him to the United States for rehabilitation (details here). Fesenko has been active in several war relief efforts, including convincing the Indian government to send war supplies to Ukraine, and finding avenues for young Ukrainian swimmers to train in other countries using relationships formed during his own elite swimming career.

Fesenko was on the 2004 Olympic Team with Chervynskiy and his father, Sergey Fesenko senior, was a 1980 Olympic gold medalist in the 200 fly for the USSR. Fesenko currently lives in the United States.

Fesenko says that he is one of three known national swimmers who are currently fighting for Ukraine in the war.

With war engulfing the nation, including estimates of around 700,000 Ukrainians currently actively fighting at the front, several athletes have been involved in the war. Earlier this month, former Ukrainian National Team hockey player Oleksandr Matviychuk was seriously injured after being shot; Eugine Obendinskiy, ex-captain of the Ukrainian National Water Polo Team, was killed in a bombing; and a Ukrainian National Swimming Team coach spent two hours trapped under rubble when a building she was sheltering under was hit by a missile.

Estimates of total fatalities from the war vary widely by source, but recent estimates by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies reports that Russia has suffered approximately 250,000 deaths and 950,000 casualties in the war since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while Ukraine has sustained an estimated 60,00-100,000 killed and up to 400,000 total casualties, including injured.

Photographs

Fesenko provided these photographs via Chervynskiy; SwimSwam could not verify the authenticity of the pictures.