WNYer Matt Anderson wins bronze medal with U.S. men's volleyball
(WIVB) – West Seneca native Matt Anderson and the U.S. men's volleyball team won bronze at the Paris Olympics on Friday, defeating Italy in the third-place match.
The win gave Anderson his second Olympic medal. He also won bronze in 2016.
The U.S. won the hard-fought match in three sets, 25-23, 30-28, 26-24.
Anderson, the team's 37-year-old veteran leader, remains arguably the best attacker on the team. He scored a team-high 24 points in the semifinal loss to Poland and recorded eight points in the third-place match, including a key spike that was blocked out of bounds to put USA ahead 24-23 in the third set.
Anderson is the second Western New Yorker to win a medal in Paris, following Anita Alvarez's silver medal with the artistic swimming team.
Anderson is believed to be the Western New Yorker with the most Olympic appearances all time, with four. Alvarez, pole vaulter Jenn Suhr and a handful of other locals have made three Olympic appearances. With the 2028 Games hosted in Los Angeles, Anderson could attempt to make a fifth appearance.
The Anderson family held a watch party at Hamburg Taproom and was featured numerous times on the broadcast.
In another Western New York connection, Aaron Russell, an outside hitter on the U.S. team who scored a team-high 15 points on Friday, also won his second bronze medal. He is married to Eden alum Kendall (Pierce) Russell. The two met while playing collegiately at Penn State. Kendall’s father, Robert, and uncle, Stephen, were highly successful volleyball coaches at Eden High School and both are members of the New York Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
The gold medal match is on Saturday between France and Poland.
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