Once again, fast-rising Sharon Chepchumba top-scored for the Kenya women’s volleyball team with 10 points despite Malkia Strikers going down to world champions Serbia 3-0(25-13,25-11,25-17) in the ongoing FIVB World Cup at Hamamatsu Arena in Japan yesterday morning.
The natural left attacker turned right attacker, who has received interests from Turkey sides, had on Saturday impressed with 11 points for the country in a match they succumbed to the United States 3-0.
At the same time, Directorial of Criminal Investigations (DCI) middle blocker Carolyne Sirengo made her debut at the event with substitute appearances in the first and third set respectively.
Kenya has so far lost three matches and lie at the bottom of the table win-less.
Africa counterparts Cameroon came from behind to snatch a point against the Dominican Republic following 2-3 (25 – 17, 25 – 15, 23 – 25, 28 – 30, 15 – 10) defeat yesterday at the Yokohama City yesterday.
The Central Africans now sit in the ninth position out of 12 participating nations and face Japan tomorrow.
The side coached by Paul Bitok will now play Brazil tomorrow with the event which is being played a round-robin, takes a break today.
Although Serbia defeated Kenya, team captain Ana Bjelica had positives vibes for the African Games champions saying: “Congratulations to Kenya who really fought. They are strong and good jumpers, but we prepared well and our block and defence worked really well.”
Reacting on the match against Serbia, Kenya coach Bitok said: "Today’s (yesterday) match was not good, especially the first two sets. We were worried about the scores because we didn’t want to come to the World Cup and have low scores, but we managed to get a good score in the third set,”
He added: “We came in knowing we would be playing the world and the European champions and this scared some of us and it was not easy for us to contain them. They came in with a specific target to serve against our two left-sided players which really pressured them. When we weren’t playing well, I opted to use other players for the sake of experience."
Kenya captain Mercy Moim said: "We tried to play our game but we lost concentration from the start to the end. We fought but our attack was weak. We played better in the first two days and I don’t know what happened today (yesterday).”
