Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 5, 1990                   TAG: 9006050281
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

U.S. TEAM LOSES TO JAPAN, BUT THE CROWD APPROVES

That much was evident 15 minutes after the U.S. women's volleyball team fell to Japan's national team Monday, when a young girl proudly waved the back of her program in the air.

It was full of the U.S. players' autographs.

The girl was one of more than 2,500 fans who packed the Bast Center on the Roanoke College campus in Salem. They came to see the fledgling American team in an exhibition designed to help solidify the squad that will represent the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Salem was one of six stops on the team's current domestic tour, and the 10-15, 15-12, 15-3, 15-12 loss to Japan left the Americans with a 1-2 record against the Japanese.

Playing in the Roanoke area was an experiment for the U.S. team, which tries to schedule its domestic tours in geographic regions. The team played during the weekend in Asheville, N.C., and Greensboro, N.C., and will finish the trip with matches in Gainesville, Fla.; Tallahassee, Fla., and Atlanta.

After the current tour comes training time in San Diego, followed by a trip to the Soviet Union for a tournament, then the Goodwill Games in Seattle in July. The Salem experiment apparently was a success.

"The crowd was the most vocal and best crowd we've had in the last three stops," said coach Terry Liskevych, whose U.S. team is 19-16 in matches this year and generally is ranked seventh or eighth in the world.

"We play in front of a lot of people," said team member Tammy Liley, a 1984 Olympian, referring to the team's foreign and domestic tours. "[But] they're not always rooting for us."

Ken Grosse, director of USA team events, said the Roanoke Valley's response and its proximity to other cities the team has visited makes it likely future exhibitions will be scheduled here.

"People are going to go away from this and tell everybody, `You should've been there,' " Grosse said.

Doug Fonder of Virginia Amateur Sports, which sponsored the event, said his group gave out all 250 brochures it brought to promote the Virginia State Games being held July 5-8 in Roanoke. Fonder said VAS, which paid $900 to rent the gym, didn't expect to make money and was content to get exposure. VAS also provided discount tickets to several local groups who then sold them, including the Roanoke Academy of Gymnastics, the Virginia Thunderbolts track club and the Roanoke Valley Aquatic Association Gators.

The crowd often reacted as though the exhibition was a medal match, with screeches and rhythmic clapping. Not Liskevych, who knows these tours are not for keeps.

"We're learning, every match we're learning," he said. "We showed we could side out - keep them from scoring. But we didn't score enough points quickly enough."

Tara Cross led the U.S. team with 23 kills; Teee Sanders had 21 and Liley 11. Kiyoko Fukada, a 19-year-old, led Japan with 20 kills.

Liley said the U.S. team's victory over Japan - the world's fourth-ranked team - in Asheville whetted its appetite.

"Tonight probably was the most frustrating [match] in the tour," she said. "I think we're a lot closer to Japan than we showed tonight. . . . When you beat them the first time, you should beat them every night."