22/01/2014 19:06
Belogorie adds another victory on night to remember for Russian Volleyball family
2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Men
Belgorod, Russia, January 22, 2013. After Zenit KAZAN had achieved that feat on Tuesday, a second Russian team, Belogorie BELGOROD, advanced on Wednesday to the Playoffs 6 of the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men. The “Lions” as they are nicknamed in Russia got their ticket to the next phase via a straight victory over Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA of Montenegro (25-22, 25-19, and 25-16) to celebrate their hundredth match in Europe’s elite club competition.
After stretching the first round to the tie-break, the guests from Montenegro were hoping for another miracle to happen as they played Russia’s champions. However, this time Belogorie was simply too strong. Belogorie had prepared well for this game scouting the performance showed last week by BUDVA, changed their starting six a little and with a more stable reception cruised to a well-deserved home victory.
Actually the start of the game was pretty close up to the second technical time-out (16:14 for Belogorie) before the home side broke away (22:18) finishing it off at 25-22. In the second set the well-known “wall” composed by Belogorie blockers was in action and stopped many of the attacks by BUDVA. The guests could not reduce their deficit to less than four points and in the end it was Belogorie to have the upper hand at 25-19.
The only moment where the course of the game changed for a while was at the beginning of the third set as Luka Suljagic was standing behind the service line. Budvanska Rivijera opened with a 6:2 run but the “Lions” were quick in responding doing this in their own fashion. A triple block on Milos Culafic made it 4:7, and after a series of terrific spikes Belogorie moved up 10:7. That did already determine the fate of the game with Belogorie cashing the final 3:0 leaving no doubts about their strength and potential.
Georg Grozer top scored for Belogorie with 19 points with Dmitriy Muserskiy adding another 14 for the home side. Marko Bojic paced Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA with 10.
“Today we achieved the goal I had set for my team” commented home mentor Gennady Shipulin. “We are finding our best play and we really wanted to make it to the next stage of this competition. With this victory I also got the feeling that we have made a step forward in our preparations for the Final Six of the Russian Cup coming up next week here in Belgorod.”
“I do not know what happened to my players today. I expected they would play much better than they did” said Budvanska Rivijera head coach Sinisa Reljic. “Today Belogorie played really strong and I have to congratulate our opponents. It is very difficult to play such a team without any real opposite player in your group since today we could not count on neither of our opposites. On top of this, when Belogorie is as motivated as they were tonight, you do not stand a chance. So I can only wish them they will win this year’s Champions League.”
Click here for more info including detailed stats of the match
|