Włocławek, Poland, June 10, 2016 - With a fourth consecutive win and another three points in their pocket Puerto Rico have reasons for joy as they continue their march to the World Grand Prix Group 2 Final Four.
David Lungaho, Kenya coach: It was tough match, because Puerto Rico is a very strong team. We played badly in the first set, because we couldn’t receive balls, but our reception worked much better in the second set. We know that beating Puerto Rico is not easy, we scored very well and we were really close, but when it was 22-22 we probably lost concentration and if only we had won this set the match could have looked different.
We have to come back to hotel and think about tomorrow’s match. First of all we have to improve our reception before our match against Poland and our concentration level which sometimes goes low. We also have to kill more balls, because we are not killing enough balls in attack. We are not afraid to play against host, because the most important thing for us it to just play our game. We are still building our team and we know that our time will come.
Yarimar Rosa, Puerto Rico captain: We are very happy we gained three points and now we are getting closer to our goal, which is qualifying to the final. My team played the best what they can, but we had the ups and downs. Tomorrow we will try to stay focused and raise up our level. Three weeks ago we played with Kenya in the qualifications to the Olympics, so we knew about their strengths. They jump high, have very athletic, tall players, so we knew if we let them control the game, we will have a problem. And it happened in the second set, but we came back and won.
Karina Ocasio, Puerto Rico: It was a good match. Kenya has improved their game since we played last time against them in Puerto Rico, so it was a little tougher match. We won, because our block and reception were very stable. We knew that they start to play better in the second set. In the first they maybe didn’t have energy, but we expected that level which they played in the next sets.
Jannet Wanja, Kenya: This match against Puerto Rico was a tough game. It was the second time we played against them and we knew that they are a better team than us. Our team didn’t play well, but we did improve our game. If we won this second set, this game could look totally different, but unfortunately we lost concentration and Puerto Rico won this set and the whole match. We are prepared for tomorrow’s match and I just hope that we will play well and our reception will be better, because today we lost too many points in this element.