19/02/2015 19:13
Dinamo MOSCOW rout Italian champions PIACENZA to move on to Playoffs 6
2015 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Women
Moscow, Russia, February 19, 2015. Russia’s Dinamo MOSCOW routed once more Italy’s champions Nordmeccanica PIACENZA – as they had done also last week – to claim a spot in the Playoffs 6 of the 2015 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Women and play there another Italian team, Unendo Yamamay BUSTO ARSIZIO. Last week Dinamo had seized the night in three sets and on Thursday they did the same also in Russia’s capital leaving no chance to their opponents cruising to another comfortable win (25-20, 25-16, 25-15). In the last round preceding the Final Four scheduled for April 4-5 in Szczecin, Dinamo will play another two matches with BUSTO ARSIZIO after these teams had already crossed their ways in Pool C, with the Russians scoring a 3:1 home win and a 3:2 victory in Italy.
The return match with PIACENZA was played at Sports Palace Dinamo and not at Druzhba sports hall as usual but the hosts did not seem too bothered by the fact that they were not playing in the venue where they normally perform. The players of Dinamo started the match very aggressive and looked very confident, with their setter Ekaterina Kosianenko opting quite often for first-tempo attacks. However, towards the end of the opening set the Muscovites started making mistakes and the Italians got closer in the score. Dinamo regrouped right by the time it counted the most and Yana Shcherban eventually finished the first set at 25-20.
The home heroines played with even more intensity in the second set and the spikes killed by the Italian champions were regularly stopped by Dinamo’s blockers. On the other hand, PIACENZA could not count on a solid block and this made things easier for the hosts. Margareta Anna Kozuch, who just joined PIACENZA after spending the first half of the season in China, tried to take her side by the hand but the Italians could not match the rhythm of Dinamo and eventually lost the second set by a landslide 16-25.
At this stage Dinamo had already secured their promotion to the Playoffs 6. During the third set the lights went down for a while and the Italians refused to continue to play; once this problem was fixed, Dinamo continued their home show and brought the match to an end in three sets (25-15).
“I am happy with our performance tonight,” said Yana Shcherban who top scored in the end with 15 points, the same tally recorded by teammate Anastasia Markova. “We tried to stay focused and concentrated from the start through the end of the match. We expected to have a more difficult task with this Italian team but we eventually won in three sets. I think that the matches coming up in the next round with BUSTO ARSIZIO will be much tougher than those we just played with PIACENZA.”
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