PAOK, ČEZ KARLOVARSKO, Hypo Tirol among winners in #CEVCupM 16th Finals
News
PAOK THESSALONIKI, ČEZ KARLOVARSKO, Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK and AONS Milon Nea Smyrni ATHENS were among the winners on Wednesday on a busy night of action in the 16th Finals of the men’s CEV Cup.
After failing to progress from the early rounds of the CEV Champions League, Mladost ZAGREB has moved to the CEV Cup where in the 16th Finals they suffered a heavy home loss at the hands of PAOK THESSALONIKI of Greece. PAOK was obviously too strong for the young and still quite inexperienced team from Croatia’s capital city. Mladost showed much resistance in the opening set, where they even had a 24-20 lead, before PAOK flipped the charts around in their favour. With the help of Bram Van den Dries, Menelaos Kokkinakis and Ioannis Takouridis, PAOK eventually had the upper hand at 30-28 to complete a tremendous comeback. PAOK had an early 8-6 lead in the second set, before the hosts responded to make it 16-14 in their favour. With Maarten van Garderen and Dimitrios Konstantinidis performing extremely well, PAOK showed their strength, thus doubling their lead in the match (25-22). With a psychological advantage, PAOK took control of the third set early on, setting the pace from start to end. With variety in its attacking options, particularly showcased by their Canadian setter Jay Blankenau, PAOK established a 16-12 lead. Without giving Mladost a chance to react, PAOK had a clear advantage in the final stretch, ultimately winning the set 25-19 and securing a 3-0 victory.
Next week, Mladost will travel to Thessaloniki hoping for a better outcome in their re-match with the Greek team.
Ratko Peris, head coach of Mladost: “The first set was very important, and we should have taken it. After failing to do so, PAOK grew in their confidence. My team, on the other hand, is not that experienced and we shall take useful lessons from this type of matches to grow and develop further.”
Samuel Goc, player of Mladost: “I think we had a good start and were ahead almost until the end of the first set, but they came back and after that we could not do much to stop them.”
Joshko Milenkoski“When you win a match by this score, you must be satisfied. We have a return match at home, and we are close to qualifying to the next round, but we shall remain focussed. The first set was very important and even though overall it was probably not a match of the highest quality, I think we could see some good actions especially in sets 1 and 2. We very much hope to reach the next round and to play against a strong team such as MILANO.”
Head coach of PAOK THESSALONIKI
Bram Van den Dries, player of PAOK: “We did not start that well, and we made too many mistakes in the first set, but we came from behind and I think this shows our character and team spirit. After taking the first set, we started playing better and better. Therefore, by ending 3-0, it was a good match for us. We still do not take our progression to the next round for granted though even if we ‘only’ need to win two sets at home next week.”
The bronze medal winners from the last edition of the Czech national league, ČEZ KARLOVARSKO, secured an impressive victory away from home over reigning Finnish national champions Ford Levoranta SASTAMALA 3-1 (20-25, 25-23, 35-33, 25-23).
The home team started the first set in an impressive away, outperforming their opponents in every aspect of the game even though the visitors could show a better feeling of the game at the halfway point of the set. As with the second set and afterwards, the Czechs sharpened their block and defence, and their side-out game was very effective as well. As it happens many times in Volleyball matches, the third set was kind of deciding the winner of the game. After a long battle, the Czechs showed more composure at the crucial moments and took it 35-33. Key for winning the set and later the whole game was their good blocking game (they had seven in the third set alone, 14 vs 9 overall). Big middle blockers Thomas Carmody and Eder Levi Kock played an important role to this extent. Both middles finished the game without registering any mistakes in their stats sheet. The fourth set was very tight too. However, the visitors eventually seized the win that they deserved courtesy of their young opposite Matej Pastrnak (26 points). Croatian receiver Marino Marelic played a good overall game too (24) and was one the leaders of the Czech team. Ford Levoranta scored more aces (9 to 4) but also made clearly more errors behind the service line (19 to 7). An exciting match will be coming up next week in Czechia where the team from Karlovy Vary will try to continue from where they left off in Finland. The experienced players of Ford Levoranta, on the other hand, are hungry for revenge and will try to improve from what they showed in their home match.
Austria’s reigning national champions Hypo Tirol INNSBRUCK were able to edge multiple Turkish national league winners Fenerbahce PRL ISTANBUL in five sets (25-23, 15-25, 25-20, 23-25, 21-19) after a drama-filled match that lasted for more than two hours at USI-Halle. Luan Weber and Arthur Nath top scored for the Austrian side with 24 and 18 points, respectively, as Dick Kooy (22) and Drazen Luburic (14) registered the most points for Fenerbahce. The re-match will follow next Wednesday in Türkiye’s megalopolis.
The other Austrian representative in the competition, SK Zadruga AICH/DOB, did not capitalise on their chances against Greece’s AONS Milon Nea Smyrni ATHENS, losing 0-3 (24-26, 17-25, 22-25) in 80 minutes only.
Martin Micheu“This loss is very disappointing. We could have won especially since at times we did play at a very high level. We did lead 24-23 in the first set and then lost three points in a row. We gave away the second set quite easily but in the third we could again play at their same level. There was a lot more we could have taken from this match, and therefore I think that we have very good chances for the re-match at home."
AICH/DOB Sports Director
Boyan Yordanov top scored for the winners (16 points), as Angelos Mandilaris recorded 11 points for the Austrian team.