Poland beats Japan to stay 1st at volleyball World Cup

For once, USA men’s volleyball coach John Speraw was speechless.

Canada climbed into seventh place in the 12-team field by sweeping Iran 3-0 (25-23, 29-27, 26-24) on Tuesday in Tokyo. The US won the first tie-breaker, which was the points earned for wins, with 30 points. There is not a harder tournament to win.

The Iranian team maintained its dominant performance in the second set and kept the Egyptian side from scoring with a good defense. “I know my team is better so, we’ll try to prepare as well as possible and be ready for qualification”, Iran coach Slobodan Kovac said in the post match news conference. “This is a team that has tremendous promise”.

Michal Kubiak played a pivotal role in pulling Poland back into the game and Bartosz Kurek led his team with 18 points in the 24-26, 27-25, 25-21, 25-19 win. Numerous US players were clearly exhausted when the match was over.

Led by former Cardinal All-American Erik Shoji (’12), the U.S. Men’s National Team qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games after winning the FIVB World Cup on Wednesday.

“We came into this going for gold”.

“Today, I saw two teams playing without motivation because it’s the end of the competition”. Maxwell Holt then scored his 18 and final point on a monster kill to give the USA the World Cup. “Hats off to Italy and Poland”.

The top six players of the World Cup – Will Poland finish the FIVB World Cup undefeated? This is my second time to qualify for the Olympics.