USA put together a strong volleyball against Puerto Rico

COLORADO SPRINGS, USA, August 23, 2019 – The U.S. Women put together a complete match to defeat Puerto Rico, 25-19, 25-16, 25-22 on Friday at the NORCECA Champions Cup at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center.

The U.S. led in attacks (41-31), blocks (6-4) and aces (7-3). It scored 21 points on Puerto Rico errors and committed 19.

The United States’ Sarah Wilhite Parsons led all scorers with 17 points on a match-high 13 kills, a match-high three aces and one block. Simone Lee added 13 points on 11 kills, one block and one ace.

Pilar Victoria led Puerto Rico with nine points on seven kills, one block and one ace.

U.S. coach Tayyiba Haneef-Park: “I think we remained disciplined, and that’s a great testament to this team and the hard work that they’re putting in. Even when we were down by five or six at one time, they were still fighting, they were still keeping their composure. Ultimately, that’s what brought us back.

“The theme of this week is being patient. In a timeout (when we were down) I reminded them to be patient and to minimize their unforced errors. For awhile we got into spot where we were serving out; we were trying to be too aggressive and going for the ace instead of just serving in. As soon as we changed our serving game, the rest of the match started to unfold for us as well.”

U.S. player Simone Lee: “I think we were great. We were down in the third and kept composure the entire time. On our side, it didn’t really feel like we were down. It was more like ‘next side out, next ball, next point.’ As our captain, Sarah (Wilhite Parsons) did such a good job of bringing the whole team together. Even in the first set, she was saying ‘let’s hold in the middle, let’s look each other in the eye, keep our composure even more,’ and I think that helped our team so much.

“(Setter) Sam puts up so many good balls, especially in the back row and I think that’s one thing that really caught the Puerto Rican defense off guard. By her being able to set both back row and front row, that opened up so many options for us. A lot of times we had one-on-ones and for us, that was like a free-for-all.”

On playing in front of a home crowd

“It was awesome. It’s always fun to play on our home soil, and I think that just being in America and representing USA and wearing it on our backs so proudly, it’s so fun.”

Puerto Rico assistant coach Oswald Antonetti: “The U.S. came out with a good game plan, and they competed well. I thought they played better today than yesterday. On our side of the court, we fought pretty well. We had some limited options in our offense and it took some time to open up the rails for us.”