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Because the USA girls head into Thursday’s Volleyball Nations League match towards Thailand, Poland has taken excessive spot within the standings.
Poland swept Türkiye on Thursday in Hong Kong to enhance to 6-0. The USA and China, which has Thursday off, are tied at 5-0. Brazil and Germany are 4-1.
The USA is coming off a four-set win over Croatia on Thursday, whereas Thailand (2-3) misplaced to Germany in 4 on Wednesday.
“We play Thailand at the moment and Thailand is a extremely enjoyable workforce,” USA coach Karch Kiraly advised us from Brasilia, Brazil. “Enjoyable to observe. For many individuals I do know, that’s their second favourite workforce after USA, as a result of they all the time have this pleasure and smiles they usually play with an amazing love for the sport and present it.”
After the USA-Thailand match (1 p.m. Jap on VB.television) in Brazil, Japan performs Korea and Brazil performs Serbia. Additionally in Hong Kong on Thursday, Canada swept Bulgaria and Italy performed the Dominican Republic.
Thailand was additionally in Antalya, Türkiye, for the primary spherical and opened with a tricky five-set loss to Italy by which it misplaced the fourth set 30-28. The Thais swept Canada, bought swept by Poland, after which swept Korea,
Towards Germany, they have been outblocked 13-7 in a 25-20, 25-13, 19-25, 25-23 defeat. Thatdao Nuekjang led with 15 kills and two blocks. Six different gamers had 4 or extra kills.
“They run a little bit completely different offense. One of many lovely issues about girls’s volleyball is that there’s much more selection and types. Japan has a sure model, Thailand has a sure model, Brazil has a sure model, and the Thailand model is much more based mostly on trickery. They’re not the tallest workforce, however they’re quick, they’re fast, they’re relentless and scrappy,” Kiraly mentioned.
“They may problem us each step of the best way and we’re wanting ahead to staying affected person. They wish to get us to leap within the air as blockers and guess after which have one other hitter coming proper behind and assault because the blocker is simply touching the ground. They’re making an attempt to create a number of area with trickery and we should be affected person and if something, be a little bit late. And we have to serve them powerful so that they don’t get to run as a lot of the quick and misleading offense as they want.”
The People have been dwelling on the sting. They opened the primary spherical with five-set victories over Serbia and Italy, swept Korea after which beat Türkiye in 5. Then in Brazil on Wednesday, they fell behind towards Croatia earlier than successful 17-25, 25-22, 25-18, 25-15. The USA had 14 blocks to Croatia’s six.
“We got here out not taking part in excellent volleyball and made some significantly pricey errors once we had a pleasant set to swing at,” Kiraly mentioned. “And that’s when now we have the best probability of likelihood of about to attain some extent. And if we make hitting errors or cross a free ball over the web, these sorts of issues swing the percentages fully away from us and provides direct factors to the opposite workforce. So these have been pricey.”
Final-place Croatia (0-5) was in charge of the primary set — the one set it has received within the event — towards the USA earlier than Kiraly subbed Olympic setter Micha Hancock for VNL first-timer Ashley Evans.
Frantti, who like Hancock additionally performed at Penn State had 15 kills, a block, eight digs and an ace.
Former Cincinnati star Jordan Thompson, who like Frantti stayed dwelling for the primary 4 matches, had 14 kills, two blocks and an ace.
After the primary set, “Micha, JT and Asjia got here in and actually stabilized us and we bought again to taking part in what we might name USA good. We weren’t searching for good performs or nice performs, however simply plenty of good performs.”
O’Neal, who’s returning to Texas for an additional season, had three kills and two blocks.
The USA additionally bought 12 kills, 11 digs and a block from Khalia Lanier (USC). Brionne Butler had six kills, 5 blocks and 4 digs.
Hancock had two kills, a block and eight digs and her workforce hit .470. And one other Penn Stater, libero Kendall White, had 16 digs.
The USA has Friday off after which performs Japan on Saturday and Brazil on Sunday earlier than heading dwelling to Anaheim to arrange for the third spherical, June 27-July 2 in Suwon, Korea.
All matches are proven on Volleyball TV. Use the promo code VOLLEYBALLMAG for a reduction on month-to-month or annual subscriptions.
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