22/01/2016 12:00
SCHWERINER SC rout Ukrainian champions to get right edge in race for Challenge Round spot
2016 CEV Volleyball Cup - Women
Yuzhny, Ukraine, January 22, 2016. Germany’s SCHWERINER SC cruised on Thursday night to a straight-sets win (25-16, 27-25, 25-20) in their first matchup with Ukraine’s champions Khimik YUZHNY to get the right edge in the race for a spot in the Challenge Round of the 2016 CEV Volleyball Cup – Women. With the only exception being the second set where the hosts claimed an 18-12 lead and even had a set point, the match was completely controlled by the Germans who next week will be trying to use the home advantage to secure their progression to the next round of Europe’s second most prestigious club competition.
The first rally of the match was claimed by Alla Politanska for Khimik but very soon SCHWERINER SC set the pace of the game edging ahead 5-2 in the early stages of the opening set. Darya Drozd and Tetyana Kozlova joined forces to close in at 5-4 but the Germans had a slim margin of two points at the first technical time-out. Even though the hosts were able to reduce their deficit to a minimum, SCHWERINER SC combined powerful attacks with an extremely solid defence to break away again at 17-12. Home coach Sergei Holotov substituted his team’s top scorer, Anastasiia Chernukha, but Kateryna Silchenkova could not do much to change the course of the game and SCHWERINER SC cashed the opening set 25-16.
However, in the second set Khimik caught a promising start leading 3-0 after an ace by Alla Politanska. The hosts stretched their lead to 5-2 and delighted the almost 1,500 fans with some great actions. This resulted in a comfortable eight-point advantage at the second technical time-out for Khimik (16-8). SCHWERINER SC scored three in a row to try and close in at 16-11 and by the score of 20-16 for YUZHNY, German coach Felix Koslowski replaced Ariel Turner with Lousi Souza Ziegler. The Brazilian-born team captain added some extra power to the game of her team and following two spikes by Jennifer Geerties and a block by Marie Schoelzel, Khimik’s lead had melted away (21-20). The hosts stayed in front at 23-21 and 24-23 but Souza Ziegler helped her team survive this first Ukrainian set point. Soon afterwards Tabitha Love recorded a single block and SCHWERINER SC completed their comeback by taking the second set at 27-25.
Everything went just easy for SCHWERINER SC in the third set where the Germans set the tempo of the game at both technical time-outs (8-4, 16-13) and eventually wrapped it up at 25-20 for a quite compelling straight-sets away victory.
“I would like to congratulate our opponent on their victory. We played against a team which belongs to the top European class but we didn’t show our best level, and this especially applies to our top scorer Anastasiia Chernukha and setter Alla Politanska. However, we will continue to fight for a ticket to the Challenge Round next week in Schwerin,” said Khimik head coach Sergei Holotov.
“We had real chances to win the second set but we didn’t score the most important points and made some stupid mistakes. But it was only the first match and we still have our chances to move on to the next round,” said Khimik team captain Tetyana Kozlova.
“We played a very tough match today. We maybe had it difficult because some of our players have just come back from the Olympic Qualifier and some others were injured. In this game we showed a good performance at blocking, serving and in defence as well. We won 3-0 and we now have a better chance of moving on to the next round but we will have to play very aggressive also at home next week where we will profit from the support of our fans. We must win the second match too and not start making any calculations,” commented the head coach of SCHWERINER SC, Felix Koslowski.
“It was our third game since early January and it was the best we have played since the start of the New Year. We focussed on serve, block and defence and these elements became key to our victory,” concluded team captain Lousi Souza Ziegler.
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