Hypo Tirol retains Austrian men’s league title
News
Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK have crowned themselves Austrian men’s national champions for the twelfth time in their history! They did so after securing four straight wins in the powerfusion VL Men final series with this season’s sensation TSV Raiffeisen HARTBERG, confidently beating the Styrian team 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-19) in the fourth and eventually last round of the championship. Hypo Tirol have claimed the title for the second year in a row – whereas outsiders HARTBERG were making their very first appearance in a championship series.
The guests dominated the initial phase in the once again very crowded Stadtwerke-Hartberg-Halle, served powerfully and scored spectacularly. The hosts were initially unable to cause any major troubles to the Tyrolean receivers. However, the home team got going better, blocked strongly, made up for a five-point deficit and eventually took the lead at 17-16. A little later, Hypo Tirol middle blocker Nicolai Grabmüller suffered an ankle injury and Niklas Jeschko came in for him. Despite the shocking moment, the Innsbruck team were the more determined side in the decisive phase of the first set. In the second, HARTBERG could lead for a long time (15-13). However, a service series from Jeschko gave the favourites a 21-16 lead and Hypo Tirol confidently closed this set in their favour as well. The Innsbruck team were unstoppable, dominated the third set and were able to celebrate the successful defence of their title after 85 minutes.
The top scorers were Luan Weber (19) - also MVP of the final series - Arthur Nath and Niklas Kronthaler (14 each) for Hypo Tirol. Đorđe Knezevic, Lukas Glatz (14 each) and Matthias Glatz (5) scored the most points for HARTBERG.
Niklas Kronthaler“We are very happy. Nicolai’s injury was a shock, but we reacted very well. We achieved our most important goal of the season and were very solid over three sets today.”
Captain of Hypo Tirol
Hypo Tirol middle blocker Nicolai Grabmüller: “The injury is of course bitter, but I do not think it is that bad. 4-0 in the final series obviously looks quite straightforward, but we struggled in the home games.”
TSV Raiffeisen HARTBERG captain Maximilian Steinböck: “It is a shame, but there are a lot of positive things to take away from this season. I dare say that it was not the last time we were in the final. See you next year!”
Maximilian Thaller“It hurts that we did not win a single match, but we can still be proud of ourselves. We reached our limits in the final series. We did not lose the championship title; we rather won the runner-up honours.”
Setter of TSV Raiffeisen HARTBERG