Germany brushes aside Italy in last match of first round – FIVB Girls Youth World Championship
The preliminary robin round of the 2011 FIVB Girls’ Youth World Championship covered its length from August 12-14. Turkish City is the host of this international girls’ volleyball campaign up till coming Sunday. In the first round, each played three matches.
One of the last day matches in Pool D featured teams from Germany and Italy. Match continued for four sets and put both teams to a real test of game skills. Italian team could succeed in only one set, while Germany took away the rest of three sets. Finally,
Germany earned better status and emerged as the victorious team. Success in the important match enabled them to advance to the next round of top-8 teams.
German Susanne Besa was named the outstanding player of the match. She topped the scores with her remarkable contribution of 24 points.
First set was an even-play by both sides. Germans had strong offensive attack, while Italy showed great defense work. The score soared up with close gap and tied at 8-all. Ilaria Maruotti helped Italy to take two-point advantage at 10-8. Afterwards, Italy
maintained its dominance up till the second technical timeout. Germany relied on middle blocker Juliane Langgemach and tried to break the rhythm of Italian spikers. Germany came really close to Italy at 16-17. However, Italians were not ready to lose the spot.
They played fast and tried to quickly cover the length of opening set. Their efforts went futile as Germany closed off the first set with 31-29.
Italy came strong on Germans in the following set and stormed opponents’ half with ground breaking shots. They kept their lead from start till end and hit the equalizer in second set. The see-saw battle continued in third set and Germany once again extended
its lead to 2-1 by winning second set. Eventually, Germans pulled off success in the fourth set and declared match victory over Italy.
The Head Coach Jens Tietböhl was the main person behind Germany’s success. He formulized an excellent plan for his team and enabled them to end the preliminary stage on a good note. He was much delighted to advance to the next round of the championship in
top-8 teams. He shared his thoughts after the match, “It was a very intense match; both teams had the chance to win. To qualify for the top eight round is a big success for German Volleyball. Today, our opposite Susanne Besa played an outstanding match, and
18 block kills helped us to stop the strong Italian spikers.”
The captain girl of German squad, Jennifer Geerties equally deserved the praise and applause. She put up a great effort and kept her side united against Italian team. She said that both teams had chances to do well but Germany made a difference by keeping
cool in most important moments of the match.
Luca Pieragnoli, coach of Italy looked disappointed as his team couldn’t perform up to the mark. He stated, “We did not seize our chances in set one and three. I’m disappointed as the team showed a good overall performance today. It’s hard not making it
to the final round.”
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