03/12/2015 22:24
Hypo Tirol delight home crowd with first CL win this season
2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League - Men
Innsbruck, Austria, December 3, 2015. On Thursday night Austria’s champions Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK claimed a very important and impressive 3:0 victory (25-21, 25-19, 25-21) over Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA of Montenegro to celebrate their first win in Pool D of the 2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men and delight an amazing audience in attendance at Olympiahalle.
The home mentor Daniel Gavan said: “I think this is a well-deserved win for us and a great return from our tie-break loss in Ankara. We prepared really well in the last two weeks and the chemistry between the players and the staff is really good at the moment. I am proud of this team and it is a great gift for me to take my first win in the Champions League as a head coach. The team has been showing great character in practice as well as during the game.”
The Austrian champions were off to a good start in front of 1,600 spectators at Olympiahalle in Innsbruck. Marek Beer scored two block points right at the beginning of the match and team captain Gregor Ropret added a service winner. The first technical time-out was called with the Austrians leading the way 8:5 and shortly afterwards, by the score of 10:6, BUDVA’s head coach Slobodan Boskan asked for his first break of the game. The blocking performance of Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK remained very strong and after Stefan Chrtiansky stopped Venelin Kadankov, Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA interrupted the game once more when trailing 10:14. The home guys stayed focussed and it was Janis Peda who scored a very important point to make it 23:20. At 24:21 Alexander Tusch, who had just joined the actions, finished it off with another service winner for the home side.
The hosts stayed in control of the situation also in game 2 taking a quick lead by four, five points. A service error by Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA sent the teams into the second technical time-out at 16:13 for the Austrian champions. Again it was the serving and blocking performance by Hypo Tirol which made the difference in this part of the game in favour of the Austrians – as a result moving the charts to 21:14. At 22:18, Austrian mentor Daniel Gavan successfully regrouped his squad with a time-out and with a 25-19 set win the hosts took a 2:0 lead in the match.
Local mentor Daniel Gavan demanded a focussed performance from the first to the last point and the team around captain Gregor Ropret took this to heart. Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK kept playing on a very high level and never took their eyes off the ‘prize’, i.e. their much desired first win this season in Europe’s elite competition. A quick 9:3 lead was the result of that attitude in the third period. With the support of the crowd the home heroes did not let Budvanska Rivijera BUDVA come back in the game and moved consistently towards a full success. The first match ball came at 24:17 and with 25-21 the Austrian champions could eventually start the party for their first victory in this year’s CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men.
Renee Teppan top scored in the end for Hypo Tirol with 17 points followed by Stefan Chrtiansky and Janis Peda with 14 and 10, respectively. Luka Babic paced the team from Montenegro with nine points.
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