Iran Press/ Europe: Polish captain Bartosz Kurek was his team’s most prolific player with 11 points to his name.
Kurek aced off the net to give Poland the first two-point lead at 3-1 in the first set. Surprisingly, that was his last point in the set. USA caught up at 6-6 on a Jeffrey Jendryk kill through the middle. It went point for point until the technical timeout.
After 12-12, opposite Kyle Ensing’s off-the-block hit produced an American break point. Then he delivered a powerful serve to give setter Micah Christenson the opportunity to hammer the overpass for a 14-12 lead. The playmaker put away another break point with a spike on two to extend it to 16-13, but Poland reacted with a four-point series, highlighted by an ace from middle blocker Jakub Kochanowski, to regain the lead one last time in the set at 17-16. With their captain Smith on fire in the middle of the net, USA were well in control through the rest of the set. A Defalco ace delivered the set point at 24-21 and an off-the-block hit by outside Aaron Russell converted it to a 25-22 win.
Kochanowski got the second set underway with a perfectly placed ace. Later, he extended the gap to 13-11 with a monster block and Kurek widened it further after hammering it down for 18-15. However, USA battled back to catch up at 20-20. After a great dig by libero Erik Shoji, middle blocker Smith was in a position to set the ball for Ensing, who put it away for a 21-20 US advantage. In the money time, the Americans stayed in control and brought it home at 25-23 on a monster block by setter Christenson.
Three opponent errors in a row gave USA a 5-2 lead in the third set. Two back-to-back aces by Defalco extended it to 8-3. Smith chipped in a direct serving point for 10-4. If the world champs had any slim hopes of coming back in this match, they faded away when Defalco took to the serving line again at 17-10. Aaron Russell tipped the overpass on Defalco’s first powerful serve and then TJ went on to fire another three aces in a row to widen the gap to 21-10. Sub-in Kyle Russell put in another one for 23-11 and it was just a matter of another couple of minutes to wrap it all up. Jendryk hammered it through the middle for 24-12 and the match winner came out of a mistaken Polish serve for 25-13.
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