Micah Christenson and Max Holt celebrate against Russia
Long Beach, USA, June 5, 2015 – USA celebrated with their home fans their 3-1 victory over Russia in Pool B of the FIVB Volleyball World League at the Walter Pyramid on Friday.
USA coach John Speraw: “I don’t think either team was as happy as they would like with the level of play. We were able to get a nice win in the first set, but I still felt, personally, that we had too many service errors. We started to get some aces. Of course, we had a lead that we gave up in the second. I am very happy with the win, but I think we need to continue to learn how to improve and what we need to do to improve. Both teams are going to have to play better volleyball in the World League if we have a hope of moving on.”
USA captain Paul Lotman: “I think we should be happy that we took three points from this match. It was not the cleanest match. We made a lot of serving mistakes. In the second set, we got an advantage and we gave that up. The third set we played pretty well. The fourth set could have gone either way and we kept our composure and finished the match. We should be happy about that.”
Russia coach Sergio Busato: “Congratulations to USA for the victory. Today was very difficult for us because in every situation it was difficult to side out because USA had a very strong serve. They may have more mistakes but they have a better serve. Tomorrow, we need to receive and side out better.”
Russia captain Andrey Ashchev: “This was a very difficult game for us, especially in the fourth set.”