Slovakia and Poland one step closer to final round ticket

Slovakia and Poland are still unbeaten at the qualifying tournament for the 2013 CEV Youth Volleyball European Championship – Boys taking place through this weekend in Nitra. On Saturday the home team beat Portugal in straight sets (25-16, 25-14, and 25-18) while Poland edged Bulgaria (3:0; 25-21, 25-11, and 25-14), another of the pre-favorites in the tournament. In the other match of the day Israel got past England in three straight sets (25-22, 25-12, and 25-18).

Slovakia and Poland are still unbeaten at the qualifying tournament for the 2013 CEV Youth Volleyball European Championship – Boys taking place through this weekend in Nitra. On Saturday the home team beat Portugal in straight sets (25-16, 25-14, and 25-18) while Poland edged Bulgaria (3:0; 25-21, 25-11, and 25-14), another of the pre-favorites in the tournament. In the other match of the day Israel got past England in three straight sets (25-22, 25-12, and 25-18).

The highlight of the day was the battle between two strong teams, namely Poland and Bulgaria. Bulgaria went up 15:12 in the first set, but then the Polish players started to play in great fashion and claimed the game in straight sets (25-21, 25-11, and 25-14). The boys from Poland are very close to win a ticket to Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, the hosts of the final round: in order to achieve this goal they need to beat Israel on Sunday. “We can say that we are one step away from reaching our goal, but we have to beat Israel tomorrow and it will be not easy. We played very good today in service and Bulgaria had problems in reception. The first set was close, but then we dominated the scene. We didn’t expect that it would be so easy” said the head coach of team Poland Wieslaw Czaja. “We knew that Poland is the favorite in this group. Their players are centralized in one place and they play all the year together and it was expected that they would come here with a strong team. We tried to do our best, but it didn’t work, so I decided to rest some players for the deciding game against Slovakia coming up tomorrow” added the head coach of team Bulgaria Ivan Halachev. Polish spiker Rafal Szymura was the best scorer with 15 points.