Lincoln, United States, June 5, 2019 – The United States rallied from their first-set loss to defeat Korea in four sets on Tueday in the 2019 FIVB Volleybal Nations League.
USA captain Jordan Larson: “It is great to be back (in the USA). We are really honoured to be part of this tournament and be at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln again. The fans came out and showed their support, and that was great for us.”
On momentum from serving: “The Koreans rely on their passing system and try to run a lot of combos. The fact we were able to get them out of system with serving pressure, took a lot of pressure off us defensively and made our job easier.”
USA coach Karch Kiraly: “I am not quite sure how to explain the slow start – that is now two matches in a row with a slow start. This one, part of it can be explained by being super excited – we don’t get to play on home court much. This is a really friendly confine. There are lots of family and great fans. It is easy to get a little overly activated. Eventually we got some of that energy out and settled down.”
On the offence provided by the middle blockers: “It is a focus of ours to get our middles going, and we had tremendous passing between Megan Courtney at the libero spot and Jordan and Mikaela. That was our best passing match in VNL this year. It gives us more of an opportunity to run our middles.”
Korea coach Stefano Lavarini: “I guess we surprised the USA team a little bit with our service and then they made mistakes. In the second set, USA started strong and served strong. When we were in trouble, we waited too long to find a solution. In the third set, losing just in the final moments with a few mistakes. We didn’t manage the pressure well in the final parts of the set. In the fourth set, USA played at its highest level.”
Korea captain Kim Yeon Koung: “In the first set, our serves were great and our reception was great. Pretty much everything we had in strategy worked out. From set two, we had a lot of misses especially on the receiving parts. So the whole atmosphere shifted over. In set three, we tried to bring it up but didn’t quite have enough to win the set.”
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