Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, January 9, 2020 – Korea maintained their unbeaten record to top Pool B after a convincing 3-0 (25-20, 25-16, 25-21) victory over Kazakhstan in the last round of pool round-robin preliminaries at the 2020 AVC Women’s Tokyo Volleyball Qualification tournament at Chatchai Hall on Thursday.
Lee Jaeyeong packaged a match-high 18 points including 17 spikes and 1 ace for Korea followed by Kim Su Ji and Kang Sohwi with 12 and 11 points each, while Kazakhstan’s best scorer Anarkulova Sana registered 13.
The first set saw the attacking mode of both sides from the beginning, featuring wing spikers Anarkulova Sana and Lee Jaeyeong. Kazakhstan showed no inferiority as they chased to tie the score several times at 6-6, 11-11 and 16-16. However, Korea performed better in team combination and they successfully broke away from the entanglement to a 25-20 win.
Due to slow adaption to the play style of Korea, Kazakhstan came into a 0-5 gap in the second set. Though they adjusted themselves soon to
chase up to 11-13 with the joint effort of Anarkulova Sana and Drobyshevskaya Olga, another tide of 4 points in a row by Korea extinguished their hope to catch up. Following an ace by Park Jeongah and a killing spike by Lee Jaeyeong, Korea smoothly wrapped up the set in 25-16.
Both sides took turns to lead at the beginning of the third set before Korea accelerated with 4 straight points to the second technical timeout at 16-12. Stubborn Kazakhs rebooted their chasing mood again seeing they strengthen their defense and blow back from 12-18 behind to 18-18 tie. Korea had to call a timeout at 19-20 following an attacking error. Backing to the court, Lee Jaeyeong stood out again with her classic spike and Kim Su Ji took relay with 3 key aces, tipping the balance to Korea in 23-20. In spite of a successful challenge by Kazakhstan, another spike by Lee Jaeyeong and a deadly ace by her twin sister Lee Dayeong closed up the set in 25-21 and the match in 3-0.
“Today our blocking defence and service reception did not work well. Apart from that we did our best. Tomorrow is the rest day but we will continue training hard and try to keep fresh and ready for the semifinal match.” said Kazakhstan captain Safronova Alessya.
“It was a hard match today. We prepared some tactics before the game and the girls did really well according to our game plan. We played aggressively. We did the right thing in serving very strong and attacking in great quality. But we could have done more on our serves.” said Korea head coach Stefano Lavarini.
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