Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 19, 2015 – The United States won FIVB Volleyball World League bronze after a straight-sets victory over world champions Poland, a year on from winning gold.
John Speraw, USA coach: “After last night’s challenging match against Serbia, I was happy to see our guys come out and play, particularly the first eight points, with such energy. I thought that set the tone for the match. Our matchups with Poland have always been challenging, so it wasn’t going to be easy. We’re fortunate Taylor went back and had that nice serving run to win this one in three. I’m very happy that we won the bronze. I hope we can do a little better in the next tournament. World League was a great experience for us. We learned a lot about our team.”
Taylor Sander, USA player: “It was hard this morning. It was such an early match. Personally, I just said I was going to play the hardest game I’ve ever played and I did that. We started really well and that gave us a little bit of emotion and everybody kind of got going. We’re tired. Four games in a row is super difficult. We left it all out there and we did the best we could to win a bronze and that’s all that matters at this point.”
Stephane Antiga, Poland coach: “We were here to win a medal. In this game we were counting on the support of the crowd. It was a positive point for us, but unfortunately our reception didn't work and this made the game difficult for us.”
Michal Kubiak, Poland captain: “The game was difficult, they were better than us, unfortunately so in the last points. It was great to count on the support of the crowd, but unfortunately we lost the game.”