14/12/2011 20:56
Swift win for Arkas IZMIR in Thessaloniki
2012 CEV Volleyball Champions League – Men
Thessaloniki, Greece, December 14, 2011. Arkas IZMIR of Turkey celebrated tonight a swift win by seeing off the hosts of Iraklis THESSALONIKI in straight sets (19-25, 21-25, 23-25) to claim the second place in the provisional standings of Pool A. With some 2’500 fans in attendance, Arkas was able to shake the Greek defense and take maximum points from this third round of action in the prelims of the 2012 CEV Volleyball Champions League – Men.
Arkas started pretty well (6:8, 10:13) and the guests set the pace also by the second technical time-out (12:16). Iraklis stormed back to cut the gap to 1 point (16:17) but the final rush fully belonged to Arkas (19-25). The same story unfolded in the second set with Arkas going up (0:3, 15:18), before the home players around head coach Sotirios Drikos almost leveled the count (18:19). However, that was the end of the Greek comeback as Burutay Subasi and Colombian Liberman Agamez scored a few attacks to go for the provisional 0:2 (21-25).
Iraklis was not going to surrender that easily and opened the third set with a good tempo but trailed down before the second mandatory stop (12:15). After a time-out, Iraklis got back on track with two aces of Andrej Kravarik, going up 19:18 and 21:19, before Arkas profited of some mistakes made by the hosts to eventually finish it off in straight sets.
Kravarik paced Iraklis tonight with 22 points while Agamez contributed 19 for the winning side.
“We are very happy with this win. We put a lot of pressure with our serving; the situation is still very open in our Pool and we look forward to the return match with Iraklis next week in Turkey” says the head coach of Arkas, Glenn Hoag. “Their win was fully deserved because we made a way too many mistakes” comments Iraklis mentor Sotirios Drikos.
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