30/11/2015 20:40
Resovia need victory to bounce back from negative streak in national league
2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Men
Rzeszow, Poland, November 30, 2015. Asseco Resovia RZESZOW and Volley ASSE-LENNIK are about to cross their ways in the third leg of the 2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men after claiming each two wins in a row in Pool G. This means that on Wednesday night one of these two teams will be suffering its first setback this season while playing at Podpromie sports hall in Rzeszow.
Belgium’s Volley ASSE-LENNIK are travelling to Poland in high spirits because they have swept all of their matches this season so far and as a result they top the charts of their national league. Asseco Resovia, on the other hand, are in a totally different mood. They indeed have to stop a negative streak after suffering three consecutive defeats in Poland’s PlusLiga. Poland’s champions have lost their matches with JASTRZEBSKI Wegiel, Zaksa KEDZIERYZN-KOZLE and Cuprum LUBIN at home and as a result their situation in the national championship does not look good at all at the moment. It is indeed a very difficult time for Andrzej Kowal’s team.
Before the season it seemed that Resovia had put together an incredibly strong and competitive roster but injuries have spoiled everything. Julien Lyneel, Thomas Jaeschke and Piotr Nowakowski came back to Rzeszow after long seasons with their national teams already dealing with injuries. Only Lyneel has returned to the court so far. Nowakowski, who was one of two best middle blockers in last year’s CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League Final Four, underwent surgery because of a back injury and it will take some months before he resumes playing. Thomas Jaeschke recovered from his leg injury but hurt his abdominal muscles and won’t be able to play for a few weeks more. As it looked like things could not get any worse for Resovia, the team suffered another setback. German opposite Jochen Schöps suffered an injury in Romania where his team played a CEV Champions League match against Tomis CONSTANTA. However, he didn’t suffer it during practice or while performing against the Romanian champions, but at the hotel. He indeed hurt his shoulder in the elevator. The 32-year-old will almost certainly require surgery, meaning he won’t be able to play for at least three months.
After that Resovia decided to bring back USA’s middle blocker Russell Holmes. He played for the team from Rzeszow in the 2014/2015 season already and helped the team claim silver at the Final Four of last year’s CEV Volleyball Champions League. He is supposed to turn into the best possible replacement for the injured Piotr Nowakowski. After Jochen Schöps’s injury, Dominik Witczak moved from Zaksa to Resovia and he has the right to play for the team from Rzeszow for the remainder of the season, both in the Polish league as well as in the European Cups.
“We can’t count how many injured players we have, we need to play and win matches. We can’t be calm now, because every point is very important,” says Bartosz Kurek, who is now the best player of Asseco Resovia and scored 38 points with a 65% success rate in the last game against Cuprum LUBIN. Still this was not enough to avoid yet another defeat for Resovia.
“Bartosz Kurek can’t win all the matches by himself. We have to play much better in the upcoming games. We really need a victory in the Champions League. We have to fight and do so through to the end,” says Resovia’s setter Fabian Drzyzga (pictured, #11).
|