Hangzhou, China, July 7, 2023 – Unbeaten Japan not only stormed into the highly-anticipated final showdown of the 1st Asian Women’s U16 Volleyball Championship, but also secured a ticket to the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s U17 World Championship after demolishing Thailand in convincing three-setter 25-22, 25-13, 25-18 in the semifinals at Hangzhou Normal University Cangqian Gymnasium on Friday afternoon.
Hikari Kudo scored a match-high 19 points from 16 attacks, one block and 2 aces for Japan, while captain Yuzuki Baba and Rion Chuganji kept good company to add 17 points and 16 points respectively.
Japan got off to a flying start as they came up with consecutive powerful attacks to establish an initial lead with six-point clear at 7-1. However, Thailand soon found their rhythm and responded well with constant attacks, leveling it to 14-14. Both sides traded points after that before Japan reached the set point 24-20. Thailand took the opponent errors advantage to save two set points before Japan upped their tempo to win the crucial point for the hard-fought opening set 25-22.
Japan maintained their momentum and raced to a commanding 7-0 edge in the second set. However, Thailand tightened their defence, but still failed on their counterattacks under heavy defense pressure. The Japanese allowed Thailand some points from the opponent’s errors to clinch the comfortable set 25-13.
Conceding two sets, the Thais started the third set solidly to surge into an early 5-2 lead. But their effort did not last long as Japan settled down for an impressive comeback, catching up with the Thais 8-8 and went on to lead 15-9. Thailand were reluctant to give up as they contended against their counterparts with several scintillating rallies. However, Japan denied the war of attrition and concluded the set 25-18 following a spectacular attack by outside hitter Rion Chuganji .
“We are happy to win this match and claim the ticket to the World Championship. We were quite disappointed that one of our players suffered an injury on court. Fortunately, we quickly recovered later as we had good servings, which helped us control the game,” said Japan head coach Saegusa Daichi, head coach of Japan, at the Mixed Zone.
“Honestly, today we played really bad. We could not follow the game plan we had initially set. We tried to gain points but it was so difficult. My girls are very young and less experienced so they could not handle well with high pressure,” said…
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