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Posted at 7:40 a.m., Thursday, November 22, 2007

Volleyball: U.S. downs Bulgaria in men's World Cup

Advertiser Staff

TOYAMA, Japan -- Riley Salmon scored 23 points today as the United States downed Bulgaria in five sets at the volleyball Men's World Cup.

Ryan Miller added 15 points as the Americans defeated Bulgaria 29-27, 20-25, 28-30, 25-22, 15-12, handing the Europeans their first loss of the tournament.

The United States, which was coming off successive losses, improved to 2-2 while Bulgaria dropped to 3-1.

"Our ability to focus and make plays at a difficult time was good," said U.S. coach Hugh McCutcheon. "Hopefully we can use this win to gain some momentum for the rest of the tournament."

In an earlier match, Pavel Kruglov scored 12 points as Russia coasted to a straight-sets win over South Korea to stay undefeated at 4-0.

Alexander Korneev and Alexey Kuleshov contributed 11 points each in the 25-16, 25-14, 25-19 win over South Korean, which dropped to 0-4.

"We are trying to win every match in this competition, and today we played well and scored a lot, so I am very satisfied," said Russia's head coach Vladimir Alekno.

The top three teams in the tournament will qualify for next year's Beijing Olympics.

European champion Spain downed African champion Egypt in three sets.

Guillermo Falasca scored a team-high 18 points to power Spain to a 25-19, 25-21, 25-19 victory to improve to 2-2, while Egypt dropped to 0-4.

"Our serves and blocks were good," said Spain's coach Marcelo Mendez. "We did well but in the second set we had service errors which we need to correct in time for the next match."

Australia defeated Tunisia 25-22, 35-37, 26-24, 25-22 while host Japan beat Argentina 25-23, 25-19, 26-24.