31/07/2015 00:32
Greece one step away from men’s European League Finals
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Lamia, Greece, July 30, 2015. On Thursday night Greece’s men team celebrated yet another win in the 2015 CEV Volleyball European League by edging Belarus in straight sets (25-21, 25-15, 25-21) for their seventh straight victory in the competition.
The players mentored by Sotirios Drikos extended their winning streak to seven matches and they are one step away from the Final Four tournament which will take place on August 13 and 14 in the city of Walbrzych in Poland.
On Friday Greece and Belarus will be playing their second matchup of the weekend starting at 20:30 local time.
In the beginning of the match Greece managed to take the lead going up 10:7, but soon Belarus came back and made it 17:18. At that moment the players mentored by legendary Victor Sidelnikov made a series of unforced errors and Greece regained the lead (22:19) and finished it off at 25-21.
Greece dominated the second set from start to end as the blue-white team caught a very good start (7:4, 10:5) and the visitors couldn’t compensate for their deficit although they worked very hard in order to change things in their favour.
In the third set the entrance of Aleh Akhrem gave a lot of energy to Belarus and the fans could witness a very tight fight. Two blocks in a row by youngster Georgios Tzioumakas helped Greece make it 13:11 and the hosts managed to keep the advantage through to the end (25-21).
Sotirios Drikos, coach of Greece: “I think from the very first points we delivered a good performance especially in two elements, service and block, and we created a lot of problems to our opponents. This match is now finished and tomorrow we have another difficult game. Belarus is a very good team, with experienced and really good athletes. We must play better tomorrow in order to win the second match. Nobody likes to lose so we are obviously very happy with our record, but I think our last three performances were not at the same level as the previous ones. But this is normal because most of our athletes already have eleven months of practicing and playing in their legs.”
Dmytro Filippov, setter of Greece: “We are very happy with our record but we need one more victory to make it to the Final Four. I think we performed really well and the fans enjoyed the match. Our nickname is ‘pirkagia team’ (the fire team) because every player who is entering the court is on… fire.”
Victor Sidelnikov, coach of Belarus: “This was not our best performance and I think one problem was the long trip that we had because we arrived in Lamia after 17 hours on the move. In the first and third sets we had our chances but after the second time-out we made a lot of mistakes and we didn’t have enough energy. We must play better but we have a lot of young players in our roster without experience.”
Artsiom Haramykin, captain of Belarus: “We played really bad today. We had problems in all elements of the game and I don’t know why. We must change a lot of things for tomorrow.”
Click here for more info including detailed stats of the match
|