Defending champions Serbia settles for bronze-ware – Volleyball News
Serbia women’s national volleyball team that secured the last three European League titles in a row failed to claim the top spot this year, but managed to seize the bronze-medal victory.
Serbia clashed with the Netherlands for third position in the 2012 CEV Women’s European Volleyball League on Friday. Serb squad jumped out of the gate and captured first two sets of the game, 25-23 and 25-15. The Dutch ladies fought back and saved the match
points by winning third set, 23-25. However, the Serbs bounced back in the fourth set and sent 25-13 on board to win the match. The four-set affair continued for more than 90 minutes and featured lot of action on the net.
KV arena in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic created the backdrop for the match.
The start of the match portrayed a different picture as the Dutch ladies caught a really good start and picked up lead. Serbia went up at 9-8 and led the score for a short time. Netherlands retook the lead and kept Serbia in chase until 16-15. Brankica MIHAJLOVIC
helped Serbia with good points, while the opposite team was supported by top-gun SLOETJES. The score soared up with close intervals and first frame gradually inched its way to the end. The situation remained undecided until the ending moments. However, Serbia
achieved the set points at 25-23 and went on front with 1-0 record.
Success in the opening set enabled Serbian team to attain its full form back in the following frame. Serbs used the competitive edge and added a flurry of points. They hit with power and provided enough damage to the rival side. Netherlands trailed behind
and failed to take lead for a single time in the second set. Serbia claimed second set with 10 points and improved to 2-0 in the match.
Serbia led the scores in the early few minutes of the third set, but then caught up in few slip-ups. In the meanwhile, Dutch squad struggled and went up. They staged a consistent performance and claimed third set, 25-23.
Fourth set was all about Serbia. Serbs led the score from start to end and closed the final set at 25-13, which led them to 3-1 victory.
“We played a little better than yesterday; we cannot say that we are satisfied but we should be happy with the result today because we showed more motivation than in the semi-final”, said Serbian head coach, Zoran Terzic, who expressed his goal for the following
weeks: “We definitively have to work a lot in order to improve before the Olympic Games”.
“We are happy that we could play against the European champions and for two sets we were able to play against them at the same level”, said the head coach of The Netherlands, Gido Vermeulen. “Now we just need to go back to the gym and improve”.
Tags: