Japan had to play its best on 7 October 2018 to defeat the Dominican national women’s volleyball team 3-2 in the second round of the FIVB Women’s Volleyball World Championships taking place in Japan from 7-11 October. The Dominican women’s team had made the top four teams in its pool to advance to the second round of 16 teams split into two pools of eight (top teams from Pools A and D in group E, and top teams from Pools C and B in group F). The top three teams in each of the two second round pools will advance to the third round.
FIVB highlighted how the Dominican team almost upset the Japanese on their home turf. FIVB reported that about eight thousand spectators saw the home favorites blow a two-set lead to the fighting Dominicans before finally closing the match in their favor with the tie-breaker. With some solid blocking efforts on both sides of the net, it was a tough battle on the court, resulting in two of the sets, the second and the fourth, dramatically extending into overtime. Sarina Koga hammered out 23 points for Japan, while Bethania De La Cruz was Dominican Republic’s most prolific player with 21. Now on a 5-1 record, Japan holds on to the third place in the pool standings, while the Dominian team is sixth with 3-3.
The Dominican Republic (ranked 9th by FIVB) is now playing as part of Pool E in Nagoya against 6th ranked Japan, 8th ranked Netherlands, 26th ranked Mexico, 13th ranked Germany, 13th ranked Puerto Rico, 3rd ranked Serbia and 4th ranked Brazil. Pool F players are Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Italy, Russia, Thailand, Turkey and USA that are competing in Osaka.
The scheduled games for the Dominican team are:
DR vs Japan: 7 October
DR vs Netherlands: 8 October
DR vs Mexico: 10 October
DR vs Germany: 11 October
To reach the round, the Dominican team, last week defeated Kenya 3-0 (25-5, 25-7, 25-15) and Puerto Rico 3-0 (25-22, 25-17, 25-20), and Kazakstan 3-0 (25-22, 25-15, 25-19) after losing to Serbia 0-3 (25-17, 25-20, 25-22), and Brazil 0-3 (25-14, 25-20, 25-22).
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Japan 2018
Japan 2018
Japan 2018
Japan 2018
FIVB
Volleyball Mob
8 October 2018
