SCHWERINER SC
Since they had already secured first place in the Pool before this last round, the coaching staff of Dinamo KAZAN decided to use this match as an opportunity to test the back-lines while the major stars – Ekaterina Gamova, Jordan Larson-Burbach, Evgenia Startseva, Lesya Evdokimova and Heather Bown – enjoyed some rest. The starting six of Dinamo was filled with young players who mostly celebrated their debut in Europe’s most elitist competition. Dinamo KAZAN quickly got into trouble, especially as young libero Alexandra Efremova struggled to stand the tricky float serves placed by SCHWERINER SC captain Denise Hanke. Even Olesya Nikolaeva could not stabilize the defense line of Dinamo, so SCHWERINER SC went up 18:11 and finished the set with a massive margin of nine points.
Nikolaeva was deliberately chosen as the main target by her opponents also in the second set with SCHWERINER SC quickly finding its way to the provisional 15:7, before widening the gap to 22:11 and pocketing the final 25-17.
In set 3 Dinamo KAZAN quickly trailed 3:11 but eventually cut the deficit to only one point (12:13) after a series of attacks killed by Elena Ponomareva and youngster Irina Voronkova. However, the lack of experience by the young Tatars eventually determined the final outcome of the match that ended in a 3:0 away win for SCHWERINER SC.
“Despite the defeat, our young players gained some experience in that match” says the head coach of Dinamo KAZAN, Rishat Gilyazutdinov. “I have no regrets concerning tonight’s line-up. In fact, we did not play so bad but we made a series of terrible mistakes in reception”.
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