Judging by Sunday’s victory in the MEVZA League derby with Nova KBM Branik MARIBOR, Calcit KAMNIK is well prepared for the return match that they are due to contest in the 2nd Round of the CEV Champions League Volley 2022. Last week, they lost 1-3 to SC Prometey DNIPRO, so they need a 3-0 or 3-1 home victory to advance to the third round. In this way, they would come to a much-wanted Golden Set, where they would then look for their chance for the final victory. The return match against the Ukrainian champions will take place on Wednesday, October 13, at 8 pm, in the Kamnik sports hall.
The performance shown by the current Slovenian national champions on Sunday, as well as in the first match last Thursday in Ukraine certainly bodes well for Wednesday’s return match. In their first duel, Calcit Volley were close to success in all three sets that they eventually lost. The Ukrainians, however, were better in the opening shots, whilst in other elements of the game the teams were essentially equal. If nothing else, the Slovenian champions realised that the Ukrainian team is beatable.
“In Dnipro, we put a lot of pressure in the first set with our serves, which brought us to a win. Unfortunately, in the remainder of the match, we were not as successful in this element of the game, and the quality of our reception worsened but we saw that they are not invincible. I think that it will be very important how successful we will be in the service-reception game. With a good reception, we will play more easily in attack. Once we got that covered, we will get points more easily with the fast game we have. We have a difficult match ahead of us, but I believe we can make progress,” Leja Janežic, Kamnik’s libero sounds optimistic.
“We are still not where we want to be, but we are slowly getting the outlines of what it’s all supposed to look like. We will have to sharpen certain bits by Wednesday, change certain things, but we also know exactly what can take us to Round 3. I am sure that the girls will do their best, but we will have to give a little more than one hundred percent to get to the Golden Set, which is our first goal in the match. In the Golden Set, we will have to have a bit of luck to beat the Ukrainians.”
Gregor Rozman
Head coach of Calcit KAMNIK
In the first match, Prometey’s Bulgarian coach Ivan Petkov played practically the whole match with the same roster. After a poor start, the Cuban opposite Heidy Casanova Alvarez and both receivers Kateryna Dudnik and Bohdana Anisova became hot, and the Bulgarian connection between setter Lota Kitipova and middle-blocker Nasya Dimitrova worked very well. Calcit Volley’s captain Olivera Brulec Kosti? and middle-blocker Lucille Charuk were top scorers for their team, whereas setter Eva Mori also impressed with as many as eight points.
