First tiebreaker in Hadera, and first victory for Israel at the EuroVolley Qualifier

CEV, Luxembourg. “Our players are a bunch of winners who need to know how to play at the end of such close sets”, said on Thursday the Israeli head coach Noam Katz. It seems that his words inspired Tamir Hershko and his teammates and on Friday straight they emerged victorious in the first tiebreaker in the tournament in Hadera, outclassing the previously called favourites in this match, the team of Austria. In a match that lasted 129 minutes, Israel and Austria were keeping the intrigue alive during all the five sets, both showing their best play. Despite all the efforts of Austrian star Alexander Berger to turn things around, the Israeli team recorded their first win.

Austria v Israel 2-3 (21-25, 25-20, 25-27, 25-20, 11-15)

• Israel started better in the match thanks to good performance on the block. Austria also pushed hard on attack and improved their game on the net. Niklas KRONTHALER and Viacheslav BATCHKALA from Austria and Israel respectively, were stealing the show in these moments. The players of Radovan Gacic, however, suffered on the serve with six errors in this component in the first set.
• Point for a point game with some long and inspiring rallies marked the next moments. All eyes were on Alexander Berger from team Austria who was leading his team on serve and with successful attacks.
• In the third set both Austria and Israel fought hard but the Israeli players were more precise in the decisive moments. However, in the next part the players around Noam Katz seemed to have lost a little bit of concentration, and the Austrians grabbed the opportunity to bring this match into a tie break.
• Israel entered better in the fifth set and were leading during all the time. Israeli star Tamir Hershko put the end of the discussion with a sharp spike for the 15th point.
• Alexander Berger became top scorer of the match, recording 33 points to his name. For the winners, Hershko spiked successfully 21 times.

“At the beginning of the game we made some fundamental mistakes. We didn’t perform as we imagined in defense. In this phase we made 12 mistakes! The second set was pretty okay, we had found our rhythm in reception and attack. We only had to take that with us in the third, but then we had a blackout of five points in the middle. This was the turning point. We have to win against Bulgaria. This is what we have to do. We have to try everything tomorrow: to the last point!”, Radovan Gacic, heead coach of team Austria stated.

On Saturday, Austria meet Bulgaria who have two victories out of two matches so far. In order to preserve any chances of proceeding ahead, the Austrian players should mandatory take the win over the Bulgarian Lions.

News:
CEV – European Volleyball
IVA – Israel Volleyball Association
ÖVV – Volleyball Austria