Brazilian players celebrate with the technical staff after qualifying to the semifinals
Gurabo, Puerto Rico, September 17, 2015 – Brazil claimed the top place in Pool E and a semifinal berth at the FIVB Volleyball Women’s U20 World Championship with a 3-1 (25-14, 27-25, 27-29, 25-20) victory over a tough Serbia on Thursday night.
Lorenne Geraldo and Drussyla Costa each collected 16 points in the victory while Lana Conceicao contributed 12 points, respectively. Maja Aleksic and Bojana Milenkovic were the top scorers for Serbia with 14 and 13 points.
Both team scored with 13 blocks while Brazil held a slight margin in aces 6-5. The big difference in the match was in the errors category with the winners committing 23 compared to 38 by Serbia.
The offensive tandem of Costa and Geraldo helped Brazil to build 8-3 and 16-6 advantages at the technical time outs of the first set. Brazil stayed in control the rest of the set before closing it at 25-14 as Costa finished with five points.
Geraldo broke a 7-7 tie in the second set and Conceicao attacked for a 16-12 score at the second pause. Serbia came back to take the lead 23-22 but Brazil recovered to claim the set 27-25 with the spike by Geraldo followed by ace from Costa.
The third was a close battle with Brazil arriving in front 16-15 at the second stop after a spike by Geraldo from the back court. At 27-all, Milenkovic attacked and Serbia won 29-27 with a service winner by Aleksic.
Brazil led 8-6 and 16-15 in the fourth set and went on to take the set 25-20 with one big spike by Costa.