On the second day of the women’s volleyball tournament, we can see which teams will probably fight for the medals. We have witnessed that surprises can happen, but we are sure that in the coming days we will see great some volleyball in Zagreb.
Group A
With the home crowd cheering them on, the players from the University of Zagreb won against their rivals from the Tampere University of Technology.
‘The team from Zagreb dominated on the court,’ said the girls from Finland, and the result 3: 0 (25:19, 25:19, 25:14) confirms it. They hope for the first place and they think that the libero players were the pillar and foundation of today’s games.
The players from the Ternopoli National Economic University and the Technical University of Munich played the most unpredictable match of the day, which ended 2: 3 (26:24, 23:25, 25:22, 24:26, 6:15) for the German team. After a 2: 2 draw the German players claimed the win in a tie break, winning with a 9-point margin. They will play their next match against the University of Zagreb.
‘The Ukrainians have a good technique and they play very well’, said Tiegel Caterina, and added that they don’t have a long-term objective. ‘We’ll see how far we can go,’ Tiegel said honestly.
Group B
The teams from Group B, the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and Tallinn University in Estonia played at the Vladimir Prelog High School hall.
The Estonian team had a bad start and gave several balls to the Slovenians, who outsmarted their opponents in each set, winning 25:15, 26:24, 25:13. A great block and strong serves brought extra points to the Slovenian team. The high ball moved slowly within the court, but not enough for the Estonians to dig.
The Slovenian coach Ales Hribar is proud of the victory of his team.
‘We were better, and yesterday’s defeat gave us power for today. Congratulations to the Estonian team on a good game and we look forward to future games.’
Tomorrow, Ljubljana will play against their rivals, the University of Minho, for the second place in the group.
Group C
Northumbria University won against the University of Osijek 3: 1 at Bojan Stranić Volleyball Hall. The British players showed their quality, demonstrating that they were ready to fight for the medals. Osijek played well at the start of each set, but they lacked a little more concentration to keep the advantage until the end of the set. The girls from Northumbria were calmer and more organized and they deserved the win.
Ivana Grubeša, the captain of Osijek, praised Northumbria University.
‘We didn’t have luck with the draw, we played all our matches in the morning and we’re not used to it. We need a little more time to get used to it. We always lack something; when we need to bring the set to an end, we lack the strength and end up losing it. Northumbria are excellent; they are very well organized.’
‘The match was at a very high level, our opponents were very good, fast and they play high-quality volleyball. This is sport; everything is possible in every game. We must learn from our mistakes and try to fix them,’ said the coach of the team from Osijek Dario Fančović.
The team from University won the match against the Swiss University of Lausanne with 3: 0. The Romanians have shown their good game and became a serious candidate for the top spot in the group. They dominated the net and combined different plays in their attack. The Swiss were often close to winning a set, but failed to maintain their focus till the end.
‘A very difficult game, we lacked a little more power to win the match. We had a few problems in receiving the ball, and our serve was far from good. Our rivals played very interesting and good quality volleyball and they deserved to win,’ said the captain of the Swiss team Van Rooij.
‘If we continue like this we can go very far. Our opponents were good, they play great. We want to continue winning and we will see how much we can achieve,’ said the captain of the Romanian team Mihaela Albu.
The last matches in group C will be played tomorrow: Vasile Alecsandri will play Osijek and Lausanne will meet Northumbria.
Group D
The competitors in Group D, the University of Belgrade and Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences played only three sets, and all three went to the Serbians. The Polish had trouble with blocks, allowing the Serbians to smash many times.
The coach of the Serbian team, Ognjen Bulic, was hoping to win so he wasn’t too surprised by the result.
‘Poland is a very easy opponent so it served as training for the upcoming matches, we’ll fight on!’
With this victory, Belgrade will probably go to the next round of the competition as the top team in their group, especially since University of Banja Luka won against the University of Regensburg 3: 0 (25:17, 25:12, 25:17).
The players from Bosnia and Herzegovina started strongly and managed to launch every ball across the net into the opponent’s side. The concentration of the Germans fell sharply, which resulted in a number of technical errors, and their serves and digs didn’t touch the ground thanks to the reception of Banja Luka. The visibly disappointed Germany didn’t surrender even after they lost two sets, but luck was not on their side. The game ended 3:0 for Banja Luka.
The team from Bosnia and Herzegovina said that they were expecting a fiercer competition and a more difficult game.
‘Given that yesterday the Germans defeated the Polish team we expected they would take the lead against us too. However, we were all surprised, it was really unexpected. An excellent game!’
Results
