09/08/2015 22:53
Belarus end European League campaign on high note with home victory over Turkey
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Brest, Belarus, August 9, 2015. As they bid farewell to the 2015 edition of the CEV Volleyball European League – Men, the hosts of Belarus made amends for Saturday’s loss to Turkey and claimed a 3:1 win (25-22, 22-25, 25-19, 26-24) before 1,000 fans in Brest to complete their duties in the competition. This time around the home heroes played with more focus and discipline and brought the match to a happy end after four close sets.
The game did not start so well for Turkey who trailed by two, three points in the opening set before Metin Toy helped the visitors erase their deficit by the second technical time-out. As he tried to stabilise the performance of his team in reception, Belarusian mentor Victor Sidelnikov decided to replace Maksim Marozau with Aleh Akhrem. This move did not help as much as he hoped as Turkey drew level once more at 21 all. However, Belarus’s outstanding outside spiker Andrei Radziuk was on fire towards the end of the set and he sealed the final 25-22 with a spectacular pipe attack.
Turkey scored a few good points in the early stages of the second set but their coach Emanuele Zanini took a time-out by the score of 12:10 for the home side. Belarus performed extremely well at blocking but Turkey responded with the spikes killed by Toy and Gökhan Gökgöz, eventually bringing the second set to a happy end at 25-22.
The key moment of the match followed halfway through the fourth set where a block by Siarhei Busel (pictured, #5) and good play by Viachaslau Charapovich moved the score to 11:9 for Belarus. The Turks tried to come back but despite good play by Metin Toy, Belarus finished it off at 26-24 to take their revenge for Saturday’s loss.
“Yesterday we had some problems halfway through the game and because of that we ended up losing the match. Today we performed a lot better in attack and at blocking as well. The European League is now over for us, it was a good experience and after some rest we will start our preparations for the Final Round of the European Championship; we want to perform our best there and reach our peak come autumn and the competition in Bulgaria.”
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