Nagoya, Japan, September 5, 2015 - The United States defeated Japan 3-1 on Saturday and coach Karch Kiraly credited reserves Nicole Fawcett and Kelsey Robinson for helping achieve the victory.
USA coach Karch Kiraly: It's always and honor and a privilege to play against Japan. They have a great fighting spirit, great coaching, a great history. Every seat is full and everybody is excited. Japan ran a fast offense so we had to speed up our eyework and footwork. It is difficult to go down two sets against anybody, especially Japan. We brought in Fawcett and Robinson in the second set and they gave us extra energy and helped reduce the blockouts we had in the first set.
Japan coach Masayoshi Manabe: It's very disappointing to lose today. The second set was decisive. It was especially disappointing to lose that. We have been getting off to a good start with good serves in the World Cup, but having trouble in the second and third sets. Today we had slower speed on our serves after the first set.
USA captain Christa Dietzen: We are very happy with the win. Japan was able to handle our blocks early, then we made adjustments.
USA player Tetori Dixon: We did a good job of adjusting our blocks. We knew Japan was a good team. We just kept coming back today.
Japan captain Saori Kimura: We got off to a good start. Halfway through we started making mistakes and could not recover the momentum.The ticket to the Olympics was our target here but we can't reach that now. We want to show how the staff and players have worked against China tomorrow.
Japan player Miyu Nagaoka: It was a decisive match and we could not capture the day. It is regrettable. Their concentration at the moment of truth was significant.
Japan player Sarina Koga: They undermined us with their serve and attack and we could not respond.