Things could not have started better for the USA men in the Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifier.
Tuesday in Tokyo, the Americans came away with a 25-17, 26-28, 32-30, 25-20 victory over Türkiye.
It left the USA 3-0 after previously sweeping sweeping Egypt and Finland and tied with Slovenia atop Pool B.
Next up for the USA is on Wednesday is 0-3 Tunisia, which was swept by Slovena, Serbia and Japan.
“We’ve had a nice start,” USA coach John Speraw said.
Against Türkiye, the USA, trying to secure a Paris 2024 Olympics berth, held a 13-7 advantage in blocks and had nine aces compared to three for Türkiye.
Aaron Russell went off for 20 kills, two blocks and three aces and TJ DeFalco had 15 kills, five blocks, an ace and a team-high 10 digs.
Max Holt had seven kills and three aces and Matt Andrerson had seven kills and two blocks.
Erik Shoji had eight digs and setter Micah Christenson had two kills, two blocks and six digs.
“We got off to a nice start and played good volleyball. The second set was close the whole way and I thought we had some chances, but we didn’t execute,” Speraw said.
“The third set we were up big and gave that lead away late, which was really disappointing. But we regrouped and won that set, which was really important.”
In that third set, the USA led 24-19 but couldn’t close it out.
“We played very, very well in the fourth set,” Speraw told VolleyballMag.com. “We had some challenges within the match against a very good team and I thought we responded really well to those challenges. Three-oh, we’re in a good place.”
Bosnian-born brothers Adis and Mirza Lagumdzija led Türkiye. Adis had 17 kills, a block and two aces, and Mirza had 13 kills and a block.
In the 25-20, 25-16, 25-19 win over Egypt, DeFalco had 11 kills and hit .536 to go with four aces and two blocks. Anderson had 11 kills and two aces and Russell had 10 kills and a block.
“We played hard. They did too. It was kind of surprising how well they turned it around after the first set,” Rusell told Volleyball World.
“They seemed a little bit asleep and then they just started defending a lot of balls. I was mostly trying to focus on passing and I did not realize I had that many points,…
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