Japan win five-set duel with Dominican Republic

Tijuana, Mexico, October 7, 2013 – Japan outdueled Dominican Republic in five sets (15-25, 25-22, 17-25, 25-17, 15-9) to take possession of first place in Pool A of the FIVB Women’s U23 World Championship on Monday.

The fast offence of the Japanese side and their accurate serves were keys for the victory as they were able neutralized the power of the Dominican side. The winners gave away 25 points via unforced errors to 30 by the opponents.

Yurie Nabeya and Saori Takahashi were the main offensive weapons for Japan with 20 and 14 points, respectively.

Jeoselyna Rodriguez and Yonkaira Peña led the defeated side with 20 and 19 points, respectively, while Candida Arias and Brayelin Martinez contributed 13 and 10 in the losing effort.

Kanami Tashiro, captain of Japan: Dominican Republic is a very strong team with a lot of power and we couldn’t do many things at the beginning. Then we started to serve better and receive better and that was the difference.

Brayelin Martinez, captain of Dominican Republic: We lost a very important game but we will continue battling. I think our block was not very good today.

Shigekazu Okubo, coach of Japan: We knew about the power of Dominican Republic but we were surprised by their velocity. I told my girls to play faster than them and fight for every ball. The objective of the game is to keep the ball from landing and we just did that. The players learned a lot from this match.

Marcos Kwiek, coach of Dominican Republic: It was a good match and for us it was important at least to collect one point because this is a very strong pool. We need to go back and study the plan against Italy because that is a different team with another style.

They are not that fast but are very tall. We didn’t serve as good as in the first set and Japan made adjustments, received better and played with their usual velocity.