Iskra ODINTSOVO, PIACENZA and MAASEIK advance to final four
05.3.2010
Luxembourg, March 3, 2010. Russia’s Iskra ODINTSOVO, CoprAtlantide PIACENZA of Italy and Noliko MAASEIK all qualified tonight for the final four of the 2009/2010 CEV Cup. The Russians had quite a demanding match to go through against TOURS VB of France, whereas the Italians quickly finished their job after having scored the single set they needed in the opening of the return match against Zaksa KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE of Poland. Noliko MAASEIK prevailed at the golden set against E.A. PATRON of Greece after both matches had ended with a 3:1.
Iskra backed up last week’s away victory against France’s TOURS VB with another 3:2 to advance to the last stage of this competition. TOURS VB started the return game pretty convincingly profiting of the mistakes that affected the overall performance of the Russian guys (4:8). Finally Iskra got the right tempo and leveled the score, but TOURS scored a series of rallies in the final section of the set to clip it at 25-22. In the second set, Sergey Makarov replaced Roman Arkhipov as the starting setter for the Russian team and that changed had quite an immediate impact on the game. With an ace of Pavel Kruglov, Iskra called it for the second technical break at 16:11. Anton Astashenkov was then the real set winner as he impressed with his blocks and first tempo attacks, before Andrey Egorchev finished the job at 25-19. In the third set TOURS VB initially set the tone was then was not able to maintain the right momentum; the Russians stormed back furiously but in the end, TOURS VB prevailed 30-28 for the provisional 1:2. Iskra returned back in the leading position in the fourth set, especially with German star Jochen Schöps and the additional support coming from Alexander Spiridonov and Andrey Egorchev (25-17). With a stellar performance for Schöps, Iskra maintained full control of the operations also in the tie-break to start the celebrations after the very last rally came to an end at 15-9.
Thomas Royer, the assistant coach of TOURS VB, stated after the match: “Today our players had real problems to stay focused and because of that we made a lot of mistakes. Iskra is physically a very strong team and good tactical plan is necessary to beat them and we actually had it. But the match did last very long and we were not able to remain concentrated all the way through”. Sergey Tsvetnov, head coach of Iskra ODINTSOVO, added: “I am very happy that we were able to seize the night and qualify for the final four. Although we could have faced not so many troubles, especially if we had scored the third set, I’m quite satisfied with the performance of my team, especially in the fourth and fifth set”.
The Italians of CoprAtlantide PIACENZA needed to score just a single set tonight against Zaksa KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE in Poland after having totally dominated the first match last week in front of their home fans. They did so and their spot in the final four was eventually quickly booked. The match started actually pretty balanced with a provisional tie at 5. As they found the right tempo in defense and with their counterattacks, the Italians rapidly sailed away in the score, first at 8:13 and then at 10:16. With a couple of brilliant serves of Ukrainian Gladyr, Zaksa tried to close the gap and eventually reduced the gap up to 2 points. However, PIACENZA stamped a very good performance in the last rallies for the final 22-25 to book the qualification for the final four. Once the final outcome of this duel was already defined, Italian coach Angelo Lorenzetti decided to give a rest to some of his key players and test out the likes of the reserves. Nevertheless, the Italians continued to dictate their rule and the first technical break was then called at 4:8 for PIACENZA. Finally, the hosts did find the right pace and with the great contribution coming from Martin and Sammelvuo they clipped the second set 25-18. With the Italians playing again with their back up players, the opening of the third set was pretty closed (9:9), but then with the motivation going steadily down, the Italians let it go and the Poles were able to close this section of the game in their favor at 25-19. The fourth set featured many great actions for the delight of the local Volleyball fans; Zaksa enjoyed an early lead (4:1) and maintained the control of the operations up to the end of the game. Terence Martin and Valdir Sequeira were voted MVP of the match for Zaksa and PIACENZA respectively.
