Sopot, Poland, April 16, 2014. After unexpectedly easy couple of matches with Tauron Banimex MKS DABROWA GORNICZA, Atom Trefl SOPOT is very close to the bronze medal from Poland's women’s national league. Atom leads the series by 2 to 0 victories and needs only one more win to end this rivalry.
"We have never had such a bad reception, though, never played as effectively in attack. For 100 spikes we did only 4 mistakes and this is something amazing. As I said on Monday, we tried to reduce the unforced mistakes and we fulfilled that goal,” said Tomasz Wasilkowski who played the role of head coach of Atom Trefl after Teun Buijs's resignation. “I am very happy, because I have to coach some experienced players who could even not listen to me at all, but they want to learn and most of all they want to fight on the court.”
In the first match, Atom won by 3:1 (25-13, 27-25, 20-25, 25-16), but definitely it was not an even game. In the second one, Atom outclassed its opponent in straight sets – 3:0 (25-15, 25-18, 25-16). In both matches there was an absolutely outstanding show by Klaudia Kaczorowska, who was voted MVP of the first game. Izabela Belcik won this prize in the second. It is worth mentioning that Tauron Banimex was missing Katarzyna Zaroslinska, who was the best scorer of the regular season, as well as Natalia Brussa. However, head coach Nicola Negro said that it cannot be an excuse for his team.
“Atom deserved to win. They put a lot of pressure at the beginning. Our performance in the second match was embarrassing. We played without two important players but it cannot be a good reason why we did not play good volleyball. For me, it is worse than just being beaten by 0:3, because you can lose in straight sets even when you play well against a team like Atom,” commented Negro. “I also want to thank the people from Sopot. I am very happy to be back here, where I spent two amazing seasons. They will always be in my heart.”
The best-of-five third place playoff series will be continued in Dabrowa Gornicza on April 24. If Tauron Banimex wins, the fourth match will be played on the following day.