29/03/2017 21:45
Olympiacos extend winning streak, need two sets more to make it to ‘big final’
2017 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup - Women
Piraeus, Greece, March 29, 2017. Olympiacos PIRAEUS added on Wednesday night another chapter to their fairy tale in the 2017 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup – Women as they provided a sell-out crowd of 2,000 fans with something to cheer about by rallying to a 3-1 victory (25-15, 18-25, 25-17, 27-25) in their home matchup with Yenisei KRASNOYARSK of Russia. Olympiacos are now ‘only’ two sets away from making it to the ‘grand finale’ of the competition and they will be trying to achieve this historic feat on Sunday, April 2 when playing Yenisei in the second leg of the semi-finals.
At this stage, Olympiacos have swept seven consecutive matches in this year’s CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup and they now have an edge ahead of the re-match with the European Cups rookies from Siberia. Even though they had to cope with the injury of their team captain and setter Styliani Christodoulou, which occurred by the score of 12-8 in the third set, yet Olympiacos delivered a very solid performance from start to end. Christodoulou returned to the court in the fourth set after Areti Teza had replaced her in the best way.
Olympiacos registered nine aces and their German star player Saskia Hippe chiefly contributed to the victory by scoring as many as 29 points. Nadzeya Malasai added another 15 to the tally of the home team as she helped with an impressive 49% success rate in reception. Ana Lazarevic scored 11 times for Olympiacos as Anastasiya Harelik paced Yenisei in their losing effort with 20 points.
Branko Kovacevic, head coach of Olympiacos said: “We are of course satisfied with the result of the match. The game was nervous, and at some point, we made a number of mistakes. This is understandable since this is a European semi-final against a very good opponent, and even though we tried not to think about it too much, we did feel some pressure. The first set we played really well, and they did not, whereas the second set went the other way around. However, I liked the third and fourth sets, where both teams played at a high level. The atmosphere was just great; we can say that only the fans played well from start to end.”
Saskia Hippe, star player of Olympiacos: “I think we did a very good job and I am happy with the result. Our setter suffered an injury, but the second setter came in and she did a very good job. We did stick together and never stopped fighting. It was a lot of fun to play before this crowd, they were always behind us and amazing in the way they supported us.”
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