09/08/2015 22:35
Croatia complete European League campaign with speedy win over Romania
2015 CEV Volleyball European League - Men
Zagreb, Croatia, August 9, 2015. Croatia finished their campaign in Pool B of the 2015 CEV Volleyball European League – Men on a high note with a 3:0 victory (25-23, 25-17, 25-14) in their second home match with Romania. Croatia improved their record in the competition to three wins and seven losses, settling for fifth place in the group, with Romania following at the bottom of the charts with only two wins in 10 matches.
Though they made a lot of service errors, the hosts set the tempo of the game right from the early stages of the opening set, leading by as many as four points at 11:7. However, Romania bounced back to flip the charts around at 12:13; Croatia’s mentor Igor Simuncic used two time-outs to get his guys back on track and it delivered the desired effects as Croatia eventually claimed a close first set by 25-23.
Croatia’s attitude changed in the second set where the hosts looked a lot more focussed and edged ahead by eight points at the second technical time-out. Though they relaxed a bit, Croatia still controlled the game through to the end thereby sealing a massive 25-16 set win to double their lead in the match.
Romania was forced into an early time-out in set 3 where Croatia quickly piled up a five-point lead. The break asked by the Romanian mentor did not change the course of the game as Croatia continued to perform very well in all fundamentals, scoring point after point and to the delight of a small home crowd they sealed their third win in the competition (25-14).
“It is difficult to say something after that kind of match,” Romania’s coach Danut Pascu said. “We played very bad, especially at the net, and so I am very disappointed.”
“Tonight we made amends for the mistakes we made yesterday and delivered a good performance for our audience,” Igor Simuncic, the coach of Croatia, said. “Our performance tonight was a lot better than what we showed on Saturday night.”
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