Monza, Italy, September 24, 2011 - Croatia beat Turkey 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-22) on Saturday's first Pool B match in Monza PalaIper at the 2011 CEV Volleyball European Championship - Women.
Best player of the match was Croatia's Mira Topic with 13 attacks, 2 blocks and 4 aces. In the Turkish team, Eda Erdem scored 14 points.
The match started tightly with both teams on fire and scoring some fine winners. The first techinical timeout came with the Turkish side in front 8-7. It were the Croatians, though, who fired back bravely to turn around the score at the second technical timeout, 16-11. Three blocks performed by Eda Erden leveled the set at 19-19, but the Croatians closed the set out thanks to a block of Mira Topic.
The second set was more or less a copy of the first one. Turkey led 16-15 at the second technical timeout. Mira Topic helped her team coming back strongly. The set then balanced on a knife's edge from 19-19 to 23-23. A brilliant Topic back row kill and a attack mistake by Turkish Neriman Ozsoy gave the Croatians a well-deserved 2-0 set lead.
Croatia dominated the third set 8-4 at the first technical timeout and 16-11 at the second one. Topic was unstoppable with three aces in a row from 15-11 to 18-11. The Turks tried their best to catch up, but a service error of Esra Gumus helped Croatia to close the set out 25-22, and the match.
Croatia coach Damir Jurko: "It was a hard match today. However, we did very well, especially in defense. The great result makes us looking forward to tomorrow, looking to a new challenge and, hopefully, a new success."
Croatia captain Maja Poljak "We have gone through yesterday’s defeat against Italy, with a team we could not compete. Today we were confident and we did a very good job. I am proud of my teammates. At the same time, it was an emotional match, since I was playing against my friends. Actually, I’ve been playing in Turkey for three years and I could provide my team with some information."
Turkey middle-blocker Bahar Toksoy: "One of our main strength is that we have very strong players. However, today we couldn't use them."