17/05/2015 20:22
Poland finish unbeaten, Italy settle for second place in Belchatow
2015 FIVB U21 Men Volleyball World Championship - European Qualification
Belchatow, Poland, May 17, 2015. As Poland already had secured first place in Pool G on Saturday and this way also their qualification for this year’s FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship, their mentor Jakub Bednaruk experimented a bit on Sunday but even though he used his second starting six, the home side still cruised to a 3:1 win over France (25-17, 19-25, 25-19, 26-24) to keep a perfect record in the tournament. Though the last competition day at Energia hall in Belchatow did not have much relevance, still Italy fought hard to claim their second victory in the competition following yesterday’s win over arch-rivals France, cruising to a 3:0 in their final match with Austria (25-22, 25-23, 28-26).
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Italy vs. Austria 3:0 (25-22, 25-23, 28-26)
Italy had the initial lead in both set one and two, but Austria fought ambitiously to catch up, which they managed to do in both cases, even leading briefly at the end of set two. The key points, however, were always scored by the Italian side (25-22 and 25-23). The situation was slightly different in the third set where the Austrian players were the leading side – perhaps extra motivated by the presence of the famous Argentinean coach Raul Lozano, who appeared in the stands of Energia hall. Whatever the reason, Austria’s attack was really efficient, despite very few errors on the opponent’s side. The end of the set was long, nervous and could have gone either way, but in the end it was 3:0 for Italy.
Paul Buchegger (Austria), best scorer (20) and spiker (19) of the match, said: “We are really happy that we could play here. It’s great to be among the best eight in Europe. We knew that the tournament would be hard. I think we started well in the first set but then had some problems in reception. Nothing special, just little things, but in the end those little things decided about the final result.”
Michele Totire, coach of Italy: “We came here without half of our team and I’m very happy with yesterday’s and today’s results, because the team did very well. Not all the time, but they showed a very good attitude in the key situations, especially in elements like service and block.”
France vs. Poland 1:3 (17-25, 25-19, 19-25, 24-26)
Even though the result of the match could not change the final standing, neither of the teams took the game lightly. The Polish team, which had not dropped a single set in their two previous matches, had to work hard for a 3:1 victory as Team France did everything possible to upset Poland’s score in the tournament and nearly got it to a tiebreaker (26-24 in the last, fourth set). Coach Jakub Bednaruk took the match as an opportunity to test a few different players.
Jakub Bednaruk, coach of Poland, said: “Our ‘secret weapon’ [the second line up] I was talking about yesterday worked well. The boys who kept working really hard for the last three weeks got a chance today and I’m glad that they used it well. In a way it was also a show of strength. We proved that we can use any player and win. We don’t have only one line up, we don’t have to count only on Sliwka – we have other players we can rely on.”
The best scorer of the match, Bartlomiej Lipinski, who recorded 26 points, said: “It’s great that today the coach let us play with a different starting six and we got time to show what we can do. I am confident that everyone showed his best side and we will be getting more chances to play in the next matches.”
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