Brazil
In the other matches of Saturday, United States survived a five-set battle with Thailand and Japan beat the Dominican Republic in straight sets to maintain alive their hopes for the crown.
USA held off a resilient Thailand in five sets (13-25, 27-25, 25-22, 21-25, 15-13) to raise their record to 3-1 for seven points, while Thailand dropped to 0-4 but picked up their first point in the tournament.
Jordan Larson-Burbach led USA with 23 points, while middle-blockers Lauren Paolini and Cursty Jackson contributed 16 and 15 points, respectively, in the win. Thailand’s Onuma Sittirak had a tournament-high 28 points in the losing cause.
“It was another tough battle for us but again USA had a wonderful team effort,” American coach Karch Kiraly said. “Every one of our 12 athletes made an important contribution for our win today.”
In the nightcap, Japan scored a 25-17, 25-19, 29-27 victory over the Dominican Republic to improve their record to 3-1 with 9 points while the losers descended to 1-3 with three points.
Saori Kimura and Saori Sakoda each contributed 14 points in the victory, followed by 11 points from Yuki Ishii. Brayelin Martinez scored 12 points for the defeated side and Annerys Vargas was next with 9, including five blocks.
“Today our serve and defense were as I had expected going into this match,” Japan coach Masayoshi Manabe said. “I thought blocking the Dominicans would be hard, so I tried to get our team to have blocking and defense in sync, and in the end it worked out well.”
Brazil and Japan face each other in the last contest of Sunday with Japan needing a 3-0 victory to secure the title. USA meet Dominican Republic and Russia play with Thailand in the first two matches.
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