Serbia improves to 4-0 with opening victory in the 2nd leg of European League – Volleyball news
Serbian women’s national volleyball squad maintained its dominance in Pool A of 2012 CEV European League and added fourth consecutive win to its count on Friday.
Serbian team collided with rivals from Romania and posted 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-20) victory. The Hungarian city Budapest hosted the match, while all the action took place at Sportmax competition hall. It was the opening match of 2ndleg of the tournament,
which helped Serbia to improve to 4-0. On the other hand, Romania suffered another set-back and moved to 1-3 in the tournament.
Serbian Ana BJELICA totalled 15 points and settled for the position of top-scorer, while LAZAREVIC followed her up with 12 points. For Romania, Irina-Cristina Radu scored team-high 10 points and emerged as the only Romanian player with double-digit score.
Serbs set a great tone for the competition with an early lead of 8-4 at the first technical timeout. The Romanian players showed good fighting spirit but couldn’t quite get the form to overcome the resilient rivals. The ambitious Serbian squad continued
with success and jumped to 16-12 at the next mandatory stop. Serbia controlled the operations of the game and secured the opening set, 25-18.
In the following frame, Romania threw everything in attack and used different tactics to cover the deficit. The hard-hitting enabled Romania to enjoy better status on the scoreboard but it was a short-lived phenomenon as Serbia found its way back in the
game. Serbs came in power at 8-7 and did not allow Romania to come up afterwards. Romania relied on Radu, who put up a good fight with the Serbs but the team constantly remained in the blues. Serbia finished the second set with three-point lead at 25-22 and
further strengthened its grip on the game.
Romania was quick to grab the first point in third set. Serbs lag behind but gradually worked their position up. They chased the score and went up. At the first technical timeout, Serbia led the score (8-4). Bjelica stormed opponents’ half with swift spikes
and guided Serbia to third-set win, 25-20. Serbia finished the match in straight sets and made a winning start in the second leg of the tournament.
Atanas Petrov, the head coach of Romania, regretted the loss but appreciated the effort of Serbs. He said, “I congratulate the Serbian girls as they played really well. Our reception was not working that well and hence we could not present the quality we
wanted.”
His Serbian counterpart, Ratko Pavlicevic commented, “Both teams played good Volleyball and although we have a different line-up than in Subotica last week, the additions to the group played very well and proved that we can count on them.”
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