Spaniards take second win at 2012 CEV Men’s Champions League – Volleyball news
Following a good start in tournament, Spain extended its winning record to 2-0 by defeating Slovakia in the second match on Friday.
Spanish and Slovakian squads crossed their ways at the ‘New Indoor Stadium’ in Katerini, Greece and fought for supremacy on the court. Spain got lucky to dismiss the archrivals in four sets, 3-1 (25-20, 19-25, 25-19, 25-21). Victory moved Spain to 2-0 in
the Pool A of the 2012 CEV Men’s Champions League, while Slovakia had to stand with 1-1 record.
The trio of Iban Perez, Sergio Noda, and Jorge Fernandez played a big role in Spain’s victory. They led the team in the front row and exhibited a spectacular performance. They added 17, 16, and 15 respectively.
For Slovakia, Milan Bencz put up a huge effort. He settled for the position of top-scorer with 21 points but ironically failed to lead his team to success.
Opening set of the match was totally in control of the Spaniards. They followed a great plan and did not allow Slovakia to come up for a single time in the first set. Initially, Spain built a lead of 8-5 at the first technical timeout. Slovak hitters came
up with variety of attacks but could not manage to overcome the opponents.
However, they defiantly shortened the gap of points to 15-16 at the second technical timeout. The game of hit ‘n’ run continued and eventually Spain finished the first leg of the match with success, 25-20.
Slovakia hit with power in the following set and promptly jumped to strong lead of 8-1 at the FTT. The situation seemed to have 180 degrees change in the second set as Slovakia led the scores all the way to the end. Second set ended in Slovakia’s favour,
while the final score was 25-19.
Spain regained better status in the third set of the match. The Spanish side converted 5-2 lead into 10-6 and kept the rivals behind the line. Spain secured third set at 25-19. Fourth set also came successful for Spain (25-21) and the Spaniards settled for
match victory.
Fernando Munoz Benitez, the Spanish head coach, was more than happy to down Slovakia. Speaking of the tough challenge, he said, “Slovakia played good in attack and blocking and they also have 3 or 4 players who have been serving pretty strong. It was a difficult
win for us and tomorrow with Israel it will be a totally different match and story. I believe that Israel tonight will be playing better than they did on Thursday with Slovakia and tomorrow they will step up once more the quality of their performance.”
Meanwhile, the Slovak head coach Stefan Chrtiansky acknowledged the better position of Spanish team. He said Spain controlled the game with experience line-up.
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