26/11/2013 20:16
Dinamo MOSCOW outplays Crvena Zvezda in four sets
2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Women
Beograd, Serbia, November 26, 2013. Once again – similarly to what happened last year and two years ago as well – Russia’s Dinamo MOSCOW was too much to stand for Serbia’s Crvena Zvezda BEOGRAD. Still the local heroines played with glowing hearts and could take one set before they lost the game 1:3 (26-24, 20-25, 16-25, and 18-25). Dinamo scored their second victory in the prelims of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League to assert their ambition to make it to the Playoffs 12.
The first set was by far the most interesting; Dinamo set the pace of the game right from the start (2:5) but Crvena Zvezda clawed back to make it 5 all with some good actions by Nikolina Lukic. The score remained very tight up to 9 all before Dinamo broke away once more. The players around Serbian-born coach Svetlana Ilic moved up 18:13 and 22:18 but with five straight points the home heroines flipped the charts around to make it 23:22. After the score was leveled for another three times, a mistake by Russian superstar Nataliya Obmochaeva (pictured) sealed the final 26-24 for the home side.
The Serbian champions showed great momentum also in the early phases of the second set where they opened with a 6-2 run before Dinamo got back control of the game especially with their block. Dinamo could lead by five points at the second technical time-out and even though later in the set the guests from Russia made many mistakes, they still could cash the provisional 1:1 after sealing the second set with the score of 25-20.
The third set followed a very similar pattern with Dinamo leading 16:11 at the second technical time-out before they widened their lead to 21:14 and 23:15. The last point was scored by Ekaterina Krivets (25-16). In the fourth set Dinamo played their own game (8:5, 17:12) and easily wrapped it up at 25-18 with Obmochaeva who registered 22 points in the end, while home opposite Adela Helic recorded a match-high 24.
“We lost the first set because there was a drop of concentration and Crvena Zvezda made a series of good serves. They were brave and in the end we lost the set. I think that everybody can be satisfied: my team because we took another three points and scored another victory while Crvena Zvezda can be happy too because they took a set with this young team” said Dinamo MOSCOW mentor Svetlana Ilic after the game.
On the other side home mentor Ratko Pavlicevic was also satisfied with the good performance of his team: “It is good that we took a set; we played the best we could. I think we’ve struggled but at the same time we have showed a little too much respect to our opponent. It’s good that we played another strong game from which we will take a lot of positive things.”
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