U.S. sweeps Slovakia in a FIVB Girls' World Championship match - Volleyball news
The clash between the world Number 2 ranked United States team and the 28th ranked Slovakian team had expected results on 16th August in Ankara, Turkey, where the second round of the FIVB Girls' World Championship is currently being
held. The Ankara Sports Hall was witness to a clean sweep of the Slovakians by the American squad.
The first set of the match was tight and no one was sure where the tables would turn until the very end when the Americans were able to bag a win. However, the second set saw the performance of the Slovakians decrease a notch as the Americans moved in for
the kill while the third set of the game was lost by Slovakia by a significant margin. At the end of the match, the score board was showing the following final set scores: 27-25, 25-20 and 25-19.
The coach of the American team, James Stone, made the following comments when the match had ended: "It was a nice game for us. Slovakia's service was very good. They played very good today. It was a challenging match. If we lost the first set who knows what
could happen in such a case."
On the other hand, the Slovakian coach, Eva Kosekova, expressed himself in the following manner at the press conference after the match: "It was the best match for our team. The difference between the points was little. USA's blocking and defending was
very good against our attacking and blocking. After defence my team could score many points but we didn’t.”
The first technical time out of the opening set came with an American lead at 8-3 but the Slovakians did not hang back and kept close afterwards and got to the second technical timeout leading at 16-15. The Americans were able to tie the match afterwards
at 25-25 and eventually prevailed in bagging the set at 27-25.
The second set of the match started with the American lead at 7-3 but the Slovakians managed to reach the first technical time out leading at 8-7. The Americans were able to wrench the advantage out of the Slovakian hands and lead at 16-15. Slovakia stayed
close all through but the Americans did a speedy job of heading towards the end and securing the set at 25-20.
The Americans were able to get the lead early on in the third set at 12-9 and stuck with it till 16-11. It was only a matter of time afterwards that the Americans won the final set at 25-19.
Despite the fact that they lost the match, the Slovakian Nikola Pistelakova was able to top all scorers by tallying 14 points for her team while the American top scorer was Mallory McCage with 12 points.
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