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The United States women’s junior national volleyball team downed Cuba 25-20, 25-23, 25-20 on the final day of the preliminary round of the U20 World Championships on Sunday in Aguascalientes, Mexico and will advance into round two, which begins Tuesday.
The Americans lost to Italy in their first match but have responded with a pair of victories.
The U.S. beat Mexico in straight sets on Saturday as incoming Stanford freshman Kendall Kipp recorded 12 points on nine kills and two blocks.
“It feels awesome to get our first win under the belt and that gave us confidence for the rest of the tournament,” Kipp told FIVB. “We managed our errors better than we did last night and that made a huge difference. There’s a lot to see tomorrow because our group had interesting results today. Against Cuba tomorrow we will focus on our side, rely on each other and be aggressive.”
Kipp had three points on two kills and a block against Cuba.
“This team battles back to find a way to win,” U.S. coach Elliott Jerritt said. “They stayed together as a unit. The girls are learning the system and how to play at a higher level, which adds an emotional toll; they did a really nice job. Now we just have to wait and celebrate moving into the next round.”
Said team captain Logan Eggleston: “We’ve built confidence every single match and gotten more trust in each other, I hope to keep going from here; you’re going to see us win some games I think we did a really good job in staying together against Cuba’s strong hitters. Today we just picked up from yesterday’s performance, we’re continuing on an upward road after just being together for a week now, so I think we did a pretty good job together playing the entire match.”
By Palo Alto Sports Online/FIVB
By Palo Alto Sports Online/FIVB
By Palo Alto Sports Online/FIVB