20/05/2016 19:43
Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina score wins on opening day in Alytus
2017 CEV Volleyball European Championship - Women
Alytus, Lithuania, May 20, 2016. Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina opened their campaign in the first-round qualifier for the 2017 CEV Volleyball European Championship – Women with compelling 3-1 and 3-0 wins over hosts Lithuania and Norway respectively as Pool 2 got underway on Friday in Alytus. The competition is set to continue throughout the weekend with the eventual winners securing their progression to the second qualification round scheduled for September this year. The runners-up also stand a chance of achieving the same feat as they finish as the best second-placed team across both first-round pools.
Norway vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina 0-3 (19-25, 13-25, 11-25)
Bosnia and Herzegovina cruised to a compelling 3-0 victory over Norway in their first match of the 2017 EuroVolley first-round qualifier in Alytus. Bosnia and Herzegovina set the pace of the match right from the start and a five-point lead at 18-13 was enough to pocket the opening set by 25-19. After that everything went just easy for them with a massive 11-2 lead paving the way towards a commanding 25-13 win in set 2. The story repeated itself in the third set with Bosnia and Herzegovina closing the match in three straight sets.
Andelka Radišković top scored in the match for the winning side with 20 points whilst Ragni Steen Knudsen paced Norway in their losing effort with 10.
“It was very important to start the tournament with a victory, because we only play three matches this weekend. We played very well, and especially our passing was good. The next match against Montenegro will be tough, but we came here to win this tournament,” said the assistant coach of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Smail Pezerovič.
“We have been preparing for this match for the last two weeks. We tried to fight with Bosnia, but after the first set they showed that they are stronger than us and they have more experience. Our players are very young and they lack experience at this level. I am happy with some rookies on the national team and believe that we can win one of the remaining matches this weekend,” said the head coach of Norway, Odd Atle Ekerhovd.
Lithuania vs. Montenegro 1-3 (19-25, 22-25, 25-22, 13-25)
Montenegro started their EuroVolley campaign in Alytus by scoring a 3-1 victory over hosts Lithuania. The home team caught a promising start leading 12-9 in the opening set, before Montenegro got back control of the game and cruised to a 25-19 set win. The second set followed the same pattern, with Lithuania claiming an early lead (8-4) before Montenegro edged ahead at 19-17 and held on to their small advantage up to 25-22. In the third set Lithuania finally found a way to stop Montenegro’s best player Tatjana Bokan and as a result the hosts won it 25-22. However, the visitors stepped up their efforts in the fourth set to secure a 3-1 win in their first match of the competition. Two years ago the same match had ended in a far more commanding 3-0 victory for Montenegro (25-20, 25-17, 25-15).
Vilte Makauskaite and Erika Kliokmanaite scored 13 points each for Lithuania while Tatjana Bokan paced Montenegro with 22.
“We had some ups and downs today; we started pretty bad and only later in the match we could use our strong points to our advantage,” Bokan said. “We want to win the tournament as we did two years ago at home. Back in 2014 we played against the same teams and ended up in first place, so we hope we can repeat the same feat again. I do not remember much from the previous match with Lithuania since our team has undergone a long of changes since that day.”
“We ran out of energy and Montenegro showed they can play at a higher level than us,” said Lithuania coach Daiva Simokaitiene. “We played a good match, I saw some good Volleyball. I think we can fight at equal terms with the other teams in our pool.”
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