14/02/2020 16:00
Asterix Avo poised to play SCHWERIN in #CEVCupW quarterfinals
CEV Volleyball Cup 2020 - Women
Beveren, Belgium, February 14, 2020. Last week, Asterix Avo BEVEREN qualified for the seventh time in their history for the quarterfinals of a European Cup, after two nail-biting thrillers against fellow Belgians Hermes Rekkenshop OOSTENDE. So far, Asterix Avo have won all of their games in this season’s CEV Cup by the same score (3-2).
Next Thursday, only four days after the Belgian Cup final, they will be playing against SSC Palmberg SCHWERIN of Germany. It is the third time that these two teams meet in the European Cups. They did so in the 16th finals of the 1999 CEV Champions Cup, and in 2000 in the 16th final of the Cup Winners Cup. In the twenty years since then, both team have of course changed quite a bit.
SSC Palmberg SCHWERIN leads the way in the German Bundesliga, where the runner-up is Allianz MTV STUTTGART, the team of former Asterix Avo captain Céline Van Gestel.
Both teams have several players of their respective national teams (Denise Hanke, Kimberly Drewniok, Louisa Lippmann, Marie Schoelzel and Anna Pogany for SCHWERIN and Marlies Janssens, Jutta Van de Vyver, Silke Van Avermaet, Manon Stragier and Anna Valkenborg for Asterix Avo). Belgium and Germany faced each other last month in the Tokyo 2020 Volleyball qualifier in Apeldoorn. In a game that lasted more than two hours, and in which all sets ended with the smallest possible difference, Germany emerged victorious. They later lost the final to Turkey.
Asterix Avo head coach Kris Vansnick looks forward to these two games: “We are very happy to have managed to qualify for quarterfinals of the CEV Cup with our young team. This competition already brought us some very tough and interesting moments that we managed to survive. Our next opponent is for sure the stronger team if you compare both rosters, especially now that also Louisa Lippmann joined them last month. We are looking forward to this new challenge and we will give everything we have to compete with this great opponent.”
Team captain Justine D’Hondt is excited about the opportunity to face this strong opponent as well. “It is not every day that we can test ourselves against such a team. I am sure that we will enjoy both games.”
The game starts on Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 19:30 in Beveren. The return is on March 3 in Schwerin.
|