21/01/2015 22:54
Tomis CONSTANTA write history for Romania’s Volleyball family by booking Playoff spot
2015 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Men
Lugano, Switzerland, January 21, 2015. Tomis CONSTANTA continued to leave their mark in Pool A of the 2015 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men and on Wednesday night the Romanian champions added another chapter to their success story with a fifth consecutive victory in the League Round of Europe’s elite competition. They did so by edging #Dragons LUGANO by 3:1 at Resega Ice Hall (25-19, 25-16, 17-25, 25-20) and this way they also booked a historic place in the Playoffs of the most prestigious club competition in Europe.
The Romanian champions showed their physical power right from the start of the match, lining up a few players standing well above 200 cm, complemented by Serbian libero Nikola Rosic, one of the best players in Europe on that position. They easily claimed the first and second sets before the home heroes of LUGANO changed gear in the third. Tomas Alonso Aguilera and the Dragons were able to display a real team effort to lead the way by 8:5 at the first technical time-out. They widened their lead up to six points at the second mandatory stop and even though the Romanian mentor Martin Stoev tried to stop their run with some substitutions, the Bulgarian-born coach could not prevent the Dragons from stretching the match to a fourth set. The Swiss champions continued to play with a lot of enthusiasm going up there by 12:7; as the score was levelled at 14 and 17, the audience could still hope for a tie-break but in the end the hosts made too many mistakes and Tomis got another three points and a fifth victory to cement their leadership in Pool A and claim an unprecedented ticket to the Playoffs even before the last round of action coming up next week.
This was the last stop for the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League, at least for this season, in Lugano where the audience enjoyed the possibility of watching some of the major stars of this sport currently playing for Tomis or Copra Volley PIACENZA and Knack ROESELARE, the other teams that were drawn in the same Pool as the Dragons. LUGANO had to be content with another set won on Wednesday night, the result of a real team effort, with spot on for their libero Dennis Del Valle Villalobos, who could stand the personal duel with Nikola Rosic, the Serbian star standing on the other side of the net.
“I was a little afraid in the fourth set since I thought that we were going to make the same mistakes we had made in the third one,” Tomis mentor Martin Stoev commented. “We were nevertheless able to regroup and focus again, but it was a good match and LUGANO was able to pressure us so that we got into real troubles.”
Mario Motta, head coach of the local Dragons, said: “We missed a bit of consistency in our performance, but as long as we served strong, we were able to pressure our opponents.”
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