(Sports news) The Kochi Blue Spikers are riding on their first win at the RuPay Prime Volleyball League 2 days ago, they will be now looking to take it up a notch against Calicut Heroes in the blockbuster Kerala Derby here at 18 50 hrs on Friday, 18 February. Speaking ahead of their next match, Kochi Blue Spikers' Cody Caldwell said, "We don't have a lot of time before our next game, so we'll just look to devise a defensive strategy and think about how we want to play against Calicut Heroes, that will be our biggest focus."

When asked about his experience at the RuPay Prime Volleyball League so far, the American said, "It's been really cool to play in this tournament. There are lights everywhere in the stadium and it's a really cool atmosphere during matches. The players love the game and they play with so much energy, the energy just feeds off."

Reflecting on his team's victory against Chennai, Caldwell expressed, "It feels incredible to get the win. We worked on our offensive game before our match against Chennai. We also worked on playing together as a team and that helped us come through in the big moments. We were focussed on doing whatever it took to make our team successful and that really helped bring us together to play as a team last night."

Caldwell also spoke about winning the Player of the Match Award, "I was super happy to win the Player of the Match. I am willing to do anything to help the team. I had a good night, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without the setters. It was a full team effort. It was a great night for all of us and I really enjoyed it."

Speaking about the Indian players in the Kochi team, the Attacker said, "We have a super talented team. Our Captain and Middle Blocker Karthik is incredible. He's doing a great job as a leader and also scoring a lot of points. Erin Varghese played incredibly last night. It's been really fun to play with a bunch of incredible athletes in our team."

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