Lonneke Slöetjes celebrates another Netherlands win
Yokohama, Japan, October 4, 2018 - Lonneke Slöetjes top scored again for the Netherlands as they made it five wins from five to complete their Pool A commitments with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-14, 25-16) win over Mexico at the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship on Thursday, and now she is aiming to create history with her side.
Netherlands player Lonneke Slöetjes: I’m really happy with the win. We knew that Mexico had some great attackers so we analysed them well. Still they put us under pressure sometimes on block defence, but in the end with our service pressure I think we managed to keep our block defence pretty well. Of course we’re happy with the five wins until now, but we don’t have anything yet so will continue to work.
I want to win. We set a goal that we want to get a medal, we want to be on the podium. That’s a very high expectation for us, but we will make history if we do that, so we are ambitious but we work hard for it and we really hope we can achieve this goal.
Netherlands captain Maret Balkestein-Grothues: I think again we did a solid job today. The first set Mexico had a lot of serve pressure and we had to adapt to that. I think from the second set on we made a difference with our serve, played how we wanted, and we are very happy with this victory and to have five victories heading into the next round.
Netherlands coach Jamie Morrison: We’ve been trying to be aggressive from the service line and in the first set the way we were going about that wasn’t what we wanted to do so we made some changes in the second, and I thought our service pressure got a lot better and we were able to play a little more freely in all aspects of the game.
With regards to the first round, going five for five in this tournament is not easy so I’m proud of the work my team has done every single day in order to get where we are right now.
Mexico captain Andrea Rangel: Today I think we played a very good game, but unfortunately from the second set on our reception got worse and we weren’t able to win. It all depends on the result between Cameroon and Argentina now. Depending on that we might be able to proceed to the second round, but even if we cannot progress we will keep working hard looking ahead to the next competition.
Mexico’s Samantha Bricio: Our reception was not too good, but our attacks and also service were comparatively good. We could also have done a little better in blocking as well, and the Netherlands always kept us under pressure. Now all we can do is wait for the result of the match between Argentina and Cameroon.
Mexico coach Ricardo Naranjo: Congratulations to the Netherlands. They won all their games in the first round which I believe was their target, so it’s a great achievement to do that. In the first set up to the 19th point we were competing well against the Netherlands, but from the second set on their service became more aggressive and we lost our concentration and they capitalised on that.