25/01/2017 22:51
CONEGLIANO come from behind to claim tiebreak victory over Polish champions
2017 CEV Volleyball Champions League - Women
Szczecin, Poland, January 25, 2017. Italy’s Imoco Volley CONEGLIANO emerged victorious from a marathon match with Poland reigning national champions Chemik POLICE to celebrate a 3-2 victory (25-18, 14-25, 12-25, 25-14, 15-11) and improve their win-loss record to 2-1 in Pool A of the 2017 CEV Volleyball Champions League – Women.
The teams started the match quite nervously, making many mistakes – Chemik POLICE especially struggled with high balls. A strong series by Robin de Kruijf as the Dutch middle blocker stood behind the service line eventually propelled CONEGLIANO to a 25-18 win. At this stage, Chemik woke up and showed their real value. They shone with superb attacks from the left wing and their main spikers, Anna Werblinska and Malwina Smarzek, were just unstoppable. Smarzek showed her serving skills as well, and did so especially in the third set, with the young Malwina serving as POLICE scored more than 10 points in a row.
“We had ups and downs in this match and in my opinion this is due to a lack of concentration,” Smarzek said after the match. “Though we won two sets easily, CONEGLIANO were able to come back and this should not have happened,” she added.
The Italians did not surrender even after two tough sets. They stormed back and won the fourth set at a canter, with Samantha Bricio playing a key role in this comeback. She took a lot of responsibility and spiked ball after ball with an impressive efficiency – and did so in the all-deciding tiebreak as well.
“I think this was one of the worst matches we have played this season,” said the Polish-born setter of CONEGLIANO, Katarzyna Skorupa, “and this applies especially to the second and third sets. After that, we regrouped and eventually won the match, which is very important. And yet, we cannot afford playing like we did.” Skorupa is still recovering from injury and she could not perform at her best. “The doctor told me that I will soon be able to play at 100% and I really hope that he is right.”
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