Andrea Carrie "Annie" Drews (born December 25, 1993) is an American professional volleyball player for the United States women's national volleyball team. Drews was elected as the Most Valuable Player of the 2019 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League in Nanjing, China, where Team USA won the gold medal and the Best Opposite of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup where the U.S. finished in second place. She won gold with the national team at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Early life Drews grew up in Elkhart, Indiana. Her parents are Mike Drews and Carrie Drews. Her father played basketball at Ball State University and coached high school basketball for ten years. Her brother, Derek Drews, also played basketball at Western Michigan University. She also has a sister, Erin Courey, who is an artist in Grand Rapids, MI.
As a child, Drews played many sports other than volleyball, including basketball, cheerleading, tennis, and track. She attended Elkhart Central High School before transferring to play volleyball at Penn High School.
High school and collegiate years
Formative years and high school
Drews started playing indoor club volleyball in 2008 with Network Juniors and concluded her youth club career with Northern Indiana Volleyball Academy. She was a two-time volleyball state champion at Penn High School.
Purdue University Drews began her sporting career in school tournaments. After emerging as one of the nation's top prep players at Penn High, she headed to Purdue University's women volleyball team, with which she took part in the NCAA Division I Championships from 2012 to 2015. "The monster of the Big Ten," Purdue coach Dave Shondell called Drews. She was an All-America outside hitter.
Drews received an honorable mention at the AVCA All-American in 2014. Moreover, Drews was selected AVCA Second-Team All-America in 2015 as a senior at Purdue University. She graduated from Purdue University in Hospitality and Tourism Management in 2015.
Career
Junior national team She was a member of the U.S. Women's National A2 Program (now known as U.S. Collegiate National Team) in 2013.
Club teams
2016: Indias de Mayagüez (PUR)
In 2015, she began her professional career at 2016 Liga de Voleibol Superior Femenino where was finished runner-up with Indias de Mayagüez. She was named as part of the all-star team at the end of the tournament.
2017: Criollas de Caguas (PUR)
In the following season, she played with Criollas de Caguas. Drews was named the league's MVP after leading Caquas Criollas to a 16–0 start and the Puerto Rican title. Her performance started catching the eye of Kiraly and SASB Volleyball Legano, the club in Italy's Serie A1 she eventually signed with.
2017-2018: SAB Volley Legnano & Pomi Casalmaggiore (ITA) In the 2017-18 championship she played in the Italian A1 Series in the newly promoted SAB Volley Legnano, ending her contract with the team in December 2017. In January 2018 she signed a contract with another Italian team, Casalmaggiore.
2018-2019: Kameroglu Beylikdüzü Voleybol Ihtisas (TUR)
During the 2018-2019 pro season, she signed with Kameroglu Beylikdüzü Voleybol Ihtisas and played at the Turkish Volleyball League. She played the play-off quarterfinals and finished as the third-best scorer in the regular season with 384 points. She helped the club reach its best finish in the league since its inception.
2019-present: JT Marvelous (JPN) & Megabox Volley Vallefoglia (ITA)
In 2019, Drews signed with JT Marvelous to play in the Japan V.League Division 1 (V1), replacing Serbia women's national volleyball team outside hitter Brankica Mihajlović. Due to prior commitments with the USA national team (participation in the 2019 Women's NORCECA Volleyball Continental Championship), she missed the season's first two games. In her debut game with the team, she registered 32 points against Ageo Medics. For her performance throughout the tournament, Drews was named Best Opposite and Most Valuable Player.
Drews continued playing with JT Marvelous through the end of the 2021–2022 season. In 2023, she joined Megabox Volley Vallefoglia in Italy. In 2023, Drews returned to JT Marvelous.
Senior national team
2017
2017 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup Drews first joined the USA senior national volleyball team in 2017. She was recruited by Karch Kiraly, who returned as the head coach of the team that year after Rio Olympic Games in 2016. Kiraly brought Drews into Team USA's summer camp in Anaheim, California. When Drews joined the team, she was behind many of the players who had been in the Team USA gym since May 1 as the Puerto Rican league playoffs went through mid-May. Drews debuted for the United States national team later that year. Used primarily as the opposite in the double-sub with just two match starts, Drews led Team USA in scoring in three (against Columbia, Mexico and Argentina) of its first five matches in its gold medal run at the 2017 Women's Pan-American Volleyball Cup in June.
2017 USA Volleyball Cup
Drews led Team USA past fourth-ranked Brazil with a 21-point performance to open the 2017 USA Volleyball Cup in Anaheim on a Sunday evening. Drews powered down 16 kills on 38 swings against Brazil while adding four blocks and an ace over the course of the four sets, with final set a bonus set after the Americans won the first three sets 25–21, 25–14, 29–27. However, in the official three sets of the match, Drews was her most dominant having 14 kills on 26 attacks with just three errors to go with three blocks and an ace. And she was able to have such a break-out match on American soil with her family in the stands watching."I think it has been awesome," Drews said immediately after the Brazil match. "The longer I get into my career, the more moments like this will stand out when we do get to play on American soil and have our families here. USA has been awesome about having our families able to come to practice and they are here tonight."
2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix Kiraly left Drews in Anaheim for the first rounds of the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix. Drews took advantage of being one of only two opposites in the two- and three-hour sessions in the gym back in Orange County."When you only have two (opposites), you're getting a ton, a ton of touches," Drews said. "There are some benefits to being in the home group when the team is traveling because you get so many reps. I think being so new to this system I really wanted to take advantage of those reps and see if I could get a lot better."The extra work paid off with a spot on the U.S. roster for the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix finals round. Although the U.S. did not win either of its Finals Round matches against Serbia and Italy, Drews came off the bench in both contests to provide a huge spark. Drews was the U.S.' top scorer (16 points: 15 kills in 39 swings for a 38.46% hitting efficiency; and 1 ace) in a 3–1 loss to Italy. She racked up with 10 points (10/26 for a 38.46% hitting efficiency) in USA's faltered comeback attempt from being down 2 sets to none against Serbia. USA finished 5th at the final staging of the World Grand Prix, tied with Netherlands.
2017 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Grand Champions Cup Drews returned for duty as she joined the U.S. team for the 2017 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Grand Champions Cup. She started at opposite for all matches and top-scored in 2 occasions - 22 points vs. Japan and 12 points vs. Brazil. In its win over Korea, 25–22, 25–20, 25–16, Drews contributed 11 points on eight kills, two blocks and an ace. She helped USA claim the bronze medal for the tournament.
2018
2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League In 2018, Drews joined the U.S. team in the inaugural 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League where they eventually won gold against Turkey (25–17, 22–25, 28–26, 15–25, 7–15).
2019
2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League
Drews returned for another round of duty for the U.S. team in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League. During the preliminary rounds, she led the Best Attackers race with a 205-68-426 attacking card, good for 48.12% hitting efficiency. After advancing to the final round, Drews once again ranked first in the Best Attackers chart with a 69-18-132 attacking card, good for 52.27 hitting efficiency. She was the 2nd Best Scorer with 69 attacks, 4 blocks and 4 aces for 77 points, behind top scorer Liu Yanhan's (China) 79 points.
Annie Drews led Team USA with 23 points, including 21 kills on 41 attacks, one block and one ace against Poland in the finals pool play. Drews did not see action in the pool play match against Brazil to give way for Jordan Thompson. Drews scored 21 points in the semifinals against China to lead Team USA to victory. Drews had 16 kills on 31 swings, three aces and two blocks.
In the Gold Medal Match, Drews was named Most Valuable Player after leading USA to victory, including a team-high 33 points against Brazil in the title match. Drews hit 32/59 and added one block. The comeback concluded in high drama in the fifth set with an unusual ending. Although Brazil earned the first two-point cushion of the tiebreaking fifth set at 3–1, Team USA bounced back to take its first lead of the set at 5–4 with two Robinson kills after a Brazil service error. The Americans extended the advantage to three at 8–5 with a Drews kill, Robinson ace and Larson kill. Brazil closed to one at 10–9. Team USA went up 13–10 with kills from Drews and Haleigh Washington. Brazil saved two match points at 14–13. In a bold move, Coach Karch Kiraly called for a video challenge for net touch during the middle of match point and Team USA won the points as the video clearly showed Brazil touching the net antenna. After the win, Kiraly did not spare kind words for the tournament MVP Andrea Drews after the match"Wow, Annie. I don't know how many points she had, but she was huge. Everyone was huge. What a great team win, fall down 2-0 against one of the greatest teams in the world, Brazil. Jordan Larson came in and gave us a great lift, Tori Dixon also. It was a total team win, 14-person plus here, all the other people in our program including the 14 battling in Peru. Total team effort. So much to be proud of. We got better as the match went along. We improved our blocking lineups, had a nice passing lineup in there. Lauren Carlini doing a really nice job of running our offense and distributing."
2019 FIVB Women's Volleyball Intercontinental Olympic Qualification Tournament On 2–4 August, Drews competed with USA in the 2019 FIVB Women's Volleyball Intercontinental Olympic Qualifications Tournament (IOQT) in CenturyLink Center, Shreveport-Bossier City, United States. After matches against Kazakhstan (3–0), Bulgaria (3–2) and Argentina (3–0), USA qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. As a result of their second-place finish in the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup, USA's FIVB World Rankings points led them to become the 2nd-best team in the world as of October 2019. This put them at Pool B during the Olympic Games in 2020.
2019 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup