USA topples South Korea in a World League match – Volleyball News
American men’s national volleyball squad posted 3-0 (32-30, 26-24, 25-22) win over South Korea in a World League match on Friday.
The Dallas Convention Centre Arena in Dallas, Texas provided the backdrop for the match, while the hosts used the competitive advantage. Koreans fought a great battle and did everything to save the match. Nonetheless, the home team proved to be better and
clinched success in a three-set affair. Success moved USA to 8-2 in Pool C, whereas Korea fell to 1-9.
The captain of US team, Clay Stanley, settled for the top-scorer’s position. He added match-high 19 points, which helped the team to win. On the other hand, Kwang-In Jeon supported Korea with team-high 14 points.
The boys around head coach Alan Knipe started out slow in the match, which created a fair chance for Koreans to lead the score. They added quick points and jumped to two-point lead at the first technical timeout. Gradually, the Americans picked up pace and
responded with counter-attacks. Although Korea faced a lot of resistance from USA, it remained ahead in the game until 24-22. Thereafter, the US team went up and finished the opening set at 32-30.
Following the dramatic end of set-1, the raged-up Koreans threw everything in attack to take revenge from the US team in second set. The score was incredibly tight, but Korea earned one-point lead at the FTT. The action continued and US team made regular
attempts to overcome the rivals. Finally, they managed to take lead and claimed second set, 26-24.
Korean team was totally disgusted with the way things were going with them. They looked visibly disappointed in third set, but hit back aggressively. However, US team cruised past to 3-0 victory by winning third set at 25-22.
The match was followed by official press conference, where captains and coaches of both teams commented about the match.
The winning Coach Alan Knipe stated: “I think Korea played well and I thought they did some good things. They particularly served well and we did not receive serves well, which got us into trouble early on. We could have handled the ball better for a better
chance to transition.” He further added, “On a positive note, though we started out passing slowly, our passers got settled and composed and passed well and we did a nice job siding out. We can learn from this slow start, but there is a lot of good that comes
from winning no matter the score.”
Clay Stanley also had the similar views. In his opinion the Koreans played a pretty good match, whereas US team could have done a better job. However, he called it great learning experience, which will help the team in coming matches.
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