Poland sends Russia to first loss in European Olympic Qualification Tournament – Volleyball news
Poland displayed an incredible show of volleyball on day-2 of the women’s Olympic qualifiers in Ankara, Turkey.
In the second match of the tournament, Poland defeated Russia with 3-2 (25-17, 16-25-, 25-21, 19-25, 18-16) ratio. A crowd of more than 2,200 people witnessed the cracking fight between two top teams of Pool II on Wednesday.
With second straight win, Poland improved to 2-0 in the tournament, while Russia received the first defeat and put up with 0-1 record. Poland is staying without any loss and has brighter prospects to make it to the semi-finals.
Poland’s Katarzyna Ewa SKOWRONSKA-DOLATA, who was clad in No. 17 jersey, demonstrated spectacular performance. She totalled 25 points and emerged as the top-scorer of the match. Russian Ekaterina Gamova also created a lot of noise on the centre court and
notched up 22 points. Her teammate Kosheleva ended up with 18 points in the match.
The first whistle of the referee started things off in the match. Russia made few mistakes in the early few minutes, which helped Poland to take advantage. Polish ladies jumped to an early three-point lead at 8-5 and maintained their dominance afterwards.
Russia lagged behind and eventually suffered the loss of opening set, 17-25.
In the second set, Russia controlled the action on net and picked up an early lead. Poland adopted different strategies but failed to catch up with Russia. Powerful blocking by Liubov Shashkova held Polish attackers behind the line. Russia captured second
set 25-16 and levelled the game, 1-1.
Both teams had fully warmed up after two-set game and hotly contested their skills in third frame. Russia tried to maintain its power but Poland threw everything in attack to return in the game. Katarzyna Ewa Skowronska-Dolata led Poland to third set win
with final score of 25-21.
The see-saw battle continued and Russia created the dead-lock of 2-2 by capturing fourth set of the match. The spectators enjoyed the exhilarating action of volleyball and curiously waited to witness the winner of the match. Poland proved to be better in
fifth decisive set and earned winning status.
“We are happy to win against such a challenging opponent like Russia. They have always been difficult to play against because of the height of the players. It was not easy to break through their blocks, but we were able to overcome this difficulty and win,”
said Polish skipper Katarzyna Skorupa after the match.
The head coach of Poland Alojzy Swiderek added, “We showed our fighting spirit, especially in the tie-break, and won the match. However, we made many mistakes in the second set, which I was not happy with.”
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