12/02/2014 23:27
Zarechie ends fairy tale of Dutch champions SLIEDRECHT Sport
2014 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup - Women
Sliedrecht, Netherlands, February 12, 2014. The fairy tale of SLIEDRECHT Sport in the 2014 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup – Women came to a close on Wednesday night as the Dutch ladies lost once more – as they had also last week – to Russia’s heavyweight Zarechie ODINTSOVO (18-25, 18-25, and 20-25). The Russian team mentored by Vadim Pankov will be playing France’s ASPTT MULHOUSE in the semis coming up later this month.
Even though they had lost 0:3 last week in Russia the two-time Dutch national champions were hoping to stand a better chance at home, where they were cheered by an enthusiastic crowd of more than 1,000 supporters. However, the players of Zarechie did not look impressed at all: their superb spiker Natalia Malykh set the pace of the game for the first and second set with a series of terrific attacks that the Dutch block and defense could not stop. After cashing the provisional 2:0, the guests from Russia could already celebrate their qualification to the semis. The last point of the second set was claimed by Yulia Merkulova whose block stuff clinched a ticket to the next round of the competition for the team from the Moscow Region.
The team captain of SLIEDRECHT Sport, Nienke de Waard, said after the match: “We did everything we could to challenge this stellar opponent and make it a close match but ODINTSOVO was simply better in all fundamentals. It is not a shame if you are eliminated from the competition by such strong opponent. We successfully went through three rounds and already wrote history for our club with this participation in the European Cups.”
Click here for more info including detailed stats of the match.
|