Kelsey Robinson scored 14 points as USA had balanced scoring from their scoring leaders in victory over Turkey
Long Beach, California, USA, June 19, 2016 – USA finished their home weekend at home without a loss and gaining all nine points following a 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-16) win over Turkey.
Turkey Captain Guideniz Onal: In the first set we were equal, and in the other sets because of our small mistakes the differences got bigger. In the last set, even when we had a 10-point deficit we fought hard. For that I congratulate our staff. We are leaving the USA with five points and that is a big advantage for us. In Ankara at home we will have three matches, where we want to get as many points and go to the finals. I want to thank everyone who came to support, including the Turkish group that was here. To see Turkish people here overseas, it makes us feel like family.
Turkey Coach Ferhat Akbas: We lost to a very important team. They played really quick and with power, and we couldn’t stop them. We need to look forward to the future as we have three very important matches at home. We will try our best to go to Bangkok for the Finals.
USA Coach Karch Kiraly: I think one of our goals today was we knew that the atmosphere might be different than last night, which was a pretty special atmosphere. We knew the energy would be less, and we don’t want to be dependent on crowd, or energy or even really good play like last night when we were up 16-4 to start – we were on fire. We don’t want to be dependent on those things to bring a good version of ourselves. So our challenge today, was if we could bring a good version of ourselves and we did. I think our team did a nice job with quite different conditions. We didn’t go out to a huge lead, we weren’t playing out of our minds, and we didn’t have the crowd we had last night. We had a nice crowd, but it wasn’t the VOL-B-QUE crowd from last night.
USA Captain Christa Dietzen: I think each week we build on the previous week. We talked about not looking at it as this big daunting task with so many matches in the Grand Prix, or so matches before leaving for Rio. It is taking one match at a time. One practice at a time. We go back, look at video from these three matches, we learn from learn. We will work on those areas of weakness this week and take them into matches against Germany, Netherlands and China. We are really excited to have the opportunity to compete as a team against Netherlands and China, as will see them in Rio.