In addition to players from Italy, Rolfzen’s team had players from Puerto Rico, Belgium, Estonia and the Netherlands.

It was in January that Roflzen first began to hear about COVID-19. Parts of Italy were on lockdown. The last match Rolfzen played was on Feb. 16. After that the season was suspended, and the league hoped to resume in April. The players stayed in Italy, but didn’t leave their apartments very often.

After about three weeks of waiting, Rofzen and the other American on her team, former Illinois setter Jordyn Poulter, got approval from their team to return to the U.S.

The virus hadn’t yet hit Chieri badly, Roflzen said, but they were concerned about the quality of care they would receive if they did get sick. And they were afraid they would get stuck in Italy due to travel bans.

“We would talk about it every day,” Rolfzen said. “We would see how the death rate would just skyrocket every day. That was the scary part. You worry about your teammates’ families. A lot of them already hadn’t seen their parents because they didn’t want to risk (getting them sick).”

Less than 24 hours after getting approved to leave the country, Rolfzen was headed home via Turin, Italy; Munich; Denver; and Omaha.