Brazil rebound and take USA down in Ottawa

It didn’t take long for Brazil to bounce back in the Volleyball Nations League 2023 as just one day after suffering their first defeat in the tournament, the South Americans secured a huge win over the United States to end their opening-week campaign on a high in Ottawa, Canada.

Playing at the TD Place just 24 hours after their defeat to Cuba, the Brazilians responded with a strong performance to defeat the Americans 3-1 (25-19, 21-25, 25-15, 25-21) and end their opponents’ three-match winning streak in the tournament on Sunday.

• Watch Volleyball Nations League 2023 live on VBTV

Rio 2016 Olympic champion outside hitter Ricardo Lucarelli led the Brazilian offense with 19 points (14 kills, one ace, four blocks), followed by opposite Alan de Souza, who produced 17, with 15 kills, one ace and one block.

“We wanted to win very badly today,” Lucarelli commented. “We always want to win and to improve our level of play and we can only do that by playing. Every day this week, we came here determined to do better than we did the day before. The Americans are very disciplined and it’s always very hard to play against them. I think we had a very solid match, especially with our side out, and that gave us the stability we needed. We didn’t get a lot of time to practice together before coming here to Ottawa and I think we got a lot of confidence with the results we achieved here and also the progress we made in terms of getting to know each other on and off the court. There’s still a lot more to improve, but it was a very good first step.”

Playing in the VNL for the first time in his career, 24-year-old middle blocker Judson Nunes also stood for Brazil with 12 points, all obtained in kills.

The United States, who suffered their first loss in the VNL 2023, had opposite Jake Hanes and outside hitter Cody Kessel as their leading scorers with each of them leaving the court with 11 points.

The higher numbers of American errors (32 to 20) played a big role in the Brazilian victory, but the South Americans also did better with their blocking (nine points to five) and serving (five aces to four). The Americans were slightly better offensively, getting 51 kills to Brazil’s 50.

Volleyball Nations League 2023: full schedule and results

Before the duel between Brazilians and Americans, another South American team, Argentina, thrived in Ottawa, by beating the Netherlands in the tie-breaker (34-36, 25-20, 25-17, 20-25, 15-10) to end the opening week of the VNL 2023 with three wins and one loss.

Argentinean opposite Pablo Koukartsev led all scorers with 25 points (24 kills, one ace). He got significant help from outside hitters Luciano Vicentin and Luciano Palonsky, who contributed 16 and 14 points, respectively. Outside hitter Bennie Tuinstra was the Netherlands’ top scorer with 20 points (18 kills, two aces), followed by star opposite and team captain Nimir Abdel-Aziz, who produced 17.

The last Pool 1 match in Ottawa will start later on Sunday, with hosts Canada facing Germany at 17:00 local time (22:00 UTC).

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