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With their undisputed straight-set win over Belgium (25-17, 25-23, 25-23) on Wednesday afternoon, Slovenia have secured their place for the classification matches in Tartu (Estonia) but still have excellent chances to book a semifinal ticket. Slovenia will take on Italy in their last pool match on Thursday. Belgium kept the upper hand in blocking (12-3) but could not cope with the speed and power of the Slovenian offense (41-26). Slovenian opposite Nika Markovic was the star of the match scoring 20 points for her squad, including six service winners. Best scorers on the Belgian side were Celine Van Gestel with 12 points and Sarah Cools with 11 points.
Slovenia started the match with strong serving, hitting five aces in the first set. Their offense was another strong weapon for the Eastern Europeans in the first phase of the match. Markovic scored three service winners and three points at the net to lead her team to a quite easy 25-17 set win.
Slovenia kept the upper hand in the second set. The team of head coach Joze Casar jumped out for an 8-1 lead until the first technical timeout but saw Belgium fighting back toughly at 10-10. Even though the Belgian blockers were on fire (6 kills), the Slovenian offense eventually proved too strong for the Western Europeans (25-23).
As in the second part of the second set, there was not much to separate the two teams throughout the third period. However, the Slovenians kept calm in the decisive moments of the match, flying to a 25-23 set and 3:0 match win.
Slovenia head coach Joze Casar: “We feel great now. We secured our way to Estonia and we’ll still fight for a place in the semifinals. It was an outstanding reaction from my team after our defeat against Russia. Yesterday’s rest day helped us to reload our batteries. Our hard preparation pays off now.”
Belgium head coach Julien Van de Vyver: “I guess today we played our worst match in this tournament. We could not handle the pressure and we committed too many mistakes. We really didn’t play well.”

Italy v Russia 2:3 (25-23, 13-25, 28-26, 23-25, 13-15)

Russia edged out Italy in an epic five set (23-25, 25-13, 26-28, 25-23, 15-13) battle in Tampere, Finland on Wednesday in Pool II of the 2014 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Women. While Russia remain in the contest for the semifinal spots, Italy will fight for the last ticket to the classification round. Both teams displayed high class volleyball with Russia being the luckier team in the fifth set.
Opposite Anna Lazareva was the best scorer for Russia with 18 attack and six block points. Paola Egonu scored 25 points for Italy, 23 spikes and 2 aces. Anna Nicoletti added 23 points for the Azzurrine.
The first set ended with a slight advantage 25-23 for Italy, who had better serves and attacks in the end of the set. Egonu served two important aces in the decisive phase.
Russia fought back fearlessly with a strong attitude to turn the tables early in the second set. Strong blocks and powerful attacks helped Russia to cruise to an easy set win at 25-13.
The third period was again a very tight affair. Russia had five set balls but could not pull through. Italy, on the other hand, used their first chance at 27-26 to take a hard-earned 2:1 set lead.
However, it was not good enough. Russia regained momentum in a hardly contested fourth set (25-23) and kept the upper hand also in the fifth and deciding set, using their second match ball to improve their records to 3-1 at 2014 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Women.
Russia head coach Petr Kobrin: “It is amazing. It was a very difficult match for us. We had a plan for this match and we knew we could win. Sometimes we played well and sometimes not. We are looking forward to our duel with Turkey tomorrow. It will be another day and another match.”
Italy head coach Davide Mazzanti: “We committed a lot of mistakes. However, we worked very hard and played our best volleyball in this tournament. We had our chances, but in the important parts of the match we were not a 100% ready.”

Turkey v Finland 3:0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-17)

Turkey kept their chances for the semifinals of the 2014 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Women alive by outclassing host Finland in straight sets (25-15, 25-19, 25-17) on Wednesday evening. Finland finish sixth in Pool II.
Ada Germen scored 12 points for Turkey while Lotta Piesanen contributed 11 kills for Finland.
The first set started quite disappointing for the Finnish girls. Turkey played very well while the Finns committed many unforced errors. The hosts did their best to come back but were without chance in this opening set (15-25).
Although the second set was slightly better for the Finnish team, Finland could not cope with the power the young Turkish talents displayed. At least Finland scored four points more, 19-25.
The hosts had their best moment in the beginning of the third set but an 11-10 lead was not good enough to bother the experienced Turks. The team of head coach Mustafa Suphi Doganci kept cool, cruising to their third consecutive win in Pool II.
Turkey head coach Mustafa Suphi Doganci: “It was not our best game today but we finally won. If Finland had played a little bit better they possibly could have won a set. Everything is still open in our pool, the final decision will be known tomorrow night.”
Finland head coach Aapo Rantanen: “It was our worst match in this tournament. If we don’t play our best volleyball, the result comes like it happened tonight. We must find a better attitude for our last match tomorrow.”

The Preliminary Phase of the 2014 CEV U19 Volleyball European Championship – Women is split into two pools of six teams with the top two from each pool advancing to the semifinals and the third and fourth ranked teams making it to the classification matches 5-8.

Picture: The Slovenian side celebrate their straight-set win over Belgium, thus giving them their ticket to Tartu for the final stage of the competition.