11/07/2015 22:16
Greece cruise to second straight home win in Pool B
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Thessaloniki, Greece, July 11, 2015. Greece completed with another win over Romania their first weekend of action in Pool B of the 2015 CEV Volleyball European League – Men. This time, the Greek side prevailed 3:1 (25-17, 20-25, 25-12, 25-18) at Evosmos Municipal Sports Hall, in front of some 700 fans.
Sotirios Drikos’s players celebrated their second victory in a row thanks to their unstoppable service, which was too good for the Romanian receivers, forced them to commit many errors and made things comfortable for the home side’s blockers. Anchored by Andreas-Dimitrios Fragkos, who was an inspiration for his team-mates, Greece had a rather easy task in all sets but number 2.
Fragkos was, indeed, the one to make the difference in set 1, as he was standing behind the service line during the impressive 8-0 run which helped Greece get away and transform a 14:12 lead into a massive 22:12. From then on, it was not difficult to end it 25-17, in just 25 minutes.
Set 2 saw Danut Pascu’s experienced players react. Both team walked hand in hand – so to speak – until the second technical time-out, after which Romania took the lead for the first time (16:17) and consequently made it 19:23 thanks to a couple of block points. Razvan Olteanu’s ace sealed the set for the visitors (20-25, in 27 minutes).
Nevertheless, the Greeks dominated in the next chapters of the game, aided once again by their effective service. Drikos’s side caught a flying start in set 3, getting to the first technical time-out with an important margin (8:4), which got wider later on (16:7 and 21:8), until the definitive 25-12 in 25 minutes overall.
Set 4 wasn’t much different either, as the young Greeks had the stamina and the concentration that were necessary to bring the match to a happy end. They got away 7:2 after a 5-0 rally, putting some pressure on Romania’s reception and being effective at blocking too. The visitors couldn’t react and Greece reached a double-digit advantage (16:6) before finally winning the set 25-18 in 26 minutes.
Sotirios Drikos, coach of Greece, said: “After two consecutive matches against Romania, in which we played with a new opposite and a new middle blocker, I think after these results and especially after getting six maximum points we must be satisfied, except for the second set of today’s match where until the 18th-point mark we had already lost ten chances to have some break-points. We lost focus and concentration and ended up losing the set as well. Now we will focus on the next matches against Turkey.”
Menelaos Kokkinakis, team captain of Greece: “It is not so easy to win easily twice in a row but we did it and I think we forced Romania to display another poor performance. It is very important that we did not lose any point and I hope we will continue this way.”
Romania’s mentor Danut Pascu: “It was another bad day for us and as yesterday today also we had problems in serving and in receiving as well. The only positive thing is that we won one set. I’m very disappointed with my team. In this moment I don’t have a clear picture of the team, but I think these two matches helped me a lot to make plans for the future.”
Adrian Gontariu, team captain of Romania: “We have a lot of minuses as a team. We try to fix one at a time, but we are not in our best shape yet. I’m sure we can perform better than we did in those matches in Thessaloniki, and I hope we will show this already in the next round.”
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