Slovenia claims the Women’s U17 title and qualifies for the European Championships in a dramatic final with Croatia

Zadar, Croatia. Parallel to the Men’s U18 Middle European Championships in Slovenia, the Kresimir Cosic hall in Zadar, Croatia hosted the U17 Women’s Championships. Both championships also served as the 1st round of Qualification for the European Championships, meaning that the winner gets a spot at the same age group European Championships later on this year in Czech Republic. Not in the exactly same fashion, however similar to the men competition, also the women’s event was won by Slovenia.

Seven National Teams were split into two groups. The host Croatia together with Czech Republic, Hungary and Israel in Pool A and Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia in Pool B.
Host Croatia was able to win their Pool with wins against all 3 opponents, the closest being against Czech Republic in five, then to Hungary in four and Israel in three sets. This ended up also being the order in which the teams won against each other. Hungary nevertheless took the second place and advanced to the semifinal as Czech Republic is the host of the European Championships in July and therefore also already qualified for it. Czech Republic and Israel continued in the classification matches for 5th place, joined by Austria as the third ranked from Pool B.
Although it was only Austria, who managed to win a set against the Pool A winner Slovenia, Slovakia still ended up being stronger in the direct match-up, winning in straight sets and herewith having Slovenia and Slovakia advance to the semifinals.

Croatia and Slovenia, both winners of their respective Pools demonstrated their power in the semifinals winning in straight sets against Slovakia and Hungary and advancing to the Championship match, which also determined the team to secure an early European Championship berth.
In the closest match of the whole tournament, Croatia took an early lead with winning the first set. However Slovenia answered and took the next two, one with a dominant and the next by the smallest possible margin. In the closer third set, Croatia also built themselves up for winning the fourth set and tying the score at 2 sets for each team. Still having the momentum from the previous set, Croatia went up 3-0 in the decisive fifth set, before Slovenia called a time-out and turned the score to 8-3 in their favour. In a game to only 15 points, Slovenia did not allow for any more comebacks, securing a 3-2 (21-25, 25-12, 26-24, 17-25, 15-10) win.

The Slovenian Captain Maša Pucelj was also chosen for the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.

All the results can be found on the CEV website:
U17 Women

Videos of the matches:
YouTube – Hrvatski odbojkaški savez / Croatian Volleyball Federation