Odintsovo, Russia, February 5, 2014.  Zarechie ODINTSOVO breezed through its first-leg quarterfinal match in the 2014 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup - Women by completely shutting out SLIEDRECHT Sport.  The Russian side took only 65 minutes to hammer out a convincing 3:0 (25-15, 25-11, 25-12) victory over the visiting Dutch team.

From the start of the game the home heroines demonstrated that they do not expect to experience any difficulties during this encounter.  By the middle of the first set, the Moscow Region team was ahead by 16-11. The Russians outplayed their opponents on all counts - in attack and in defense; they by were excellent in blocking and nailed as many as 7 aces, to win the first set by 25-15.  The next set took the Russian team even less time to win. The players from Odintsovo did not give their opponents even the slightest chance, totally destroying them by 25-11. The third set was just as short and ended at 25-12.
 
Olga Bukreeva and Natalia Malykh became the best scorers of the match with 13 points each for the winning team.

"The opponent showed some good serving in the first set, which caused us to make several errors on returns,” Vadim Pankov, head coach of Zarechie, said after the match. ”Aside from that, we fulfilled our plan for the game.  The team played well and I am happy.  We studied SLIEDRECHT, but we were short on video information.  We saw only their match in Israel, where the head coach did not put all his players into the game. This was insufficient for us to have a full picture of the Dutch team and to draft a good plan for our first game. The return match in the Netherlands will not be easy, because they have a very specific small-size volleyball hall that may prove challenging for us.  We may have some hard time adjusting to it, plus, the crowd will be cheering them on."

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