Constanta, Romania, February 11, 2015. Lokomotiv NOVOSIBIRSK made a perfect start in the Playoffs 12 of the 2015 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Men by downing Tomis CONSTANTA from Romania in straight sets by 3:0 (25-21, 25-15, 25-20). It was a big first step for the Russian Express on the way to the Playoffs 6. Tomis was hoping for a home win, but Lokomotiv was simply too strong to overcome.
Russia’s Lokomotiv NOVOSIBIRSK played successfully on the Black Sea coast, even though Romania’s champions tried to create many issues to the players mentored by Andrei Voronkov. The visitors started well, but Tomis came back to take a two-point advantage at the first technical time-out. Lokomotiv re-imposed their pace and after going up 13-11 and 16-13 the Russians broke away to 20-15 and in the end pocketed the opening set with the score of 25-21. The situation did not change in the second set when Lokomotiv established total control with good attacks, perfect blocks and serves to win by 25-15. In the third set the guys from Siberia started pressuring its opponents from the serving line going up to 3-0, 6-2 and 8-4). The home side tried to return narrowing down the gap to 10-12, before Lokomotiv rushed off to 16-11 and 20-12 before wrapping it all up at 25-20.
Oreol Camejo from Lokomotiv was the best scorer with 14 points, while Ventzislav Simeonov top scored for Tomis with 13 points.
“Maybe it seemed like an easy victory, but we worked hard for it. We made the difference with the serving, which is an important quality of volleyball in Russia,” said Lokomotiv’s player Lukas Divis.
“The team from Novosibirsk proved too strong. It was certainly the most valuable team that came to Constanta since I am at Tomis, even more so than Halkbank ANKARA. Unfortunately, this is the reality and we are virtually eliminated from the Champions League,” declared Tomis’s head coach Martin Stoev.
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