Cyprus
In the de facto final of the competition the team of head coach Emmanouil Roumeliotis shut out Luxembourg to finish on top of the rankings, as San Marino claimed the bronze after a 3:1 victory over Iceland.
As both Cyprus and Luxembourg had not lost any games in the women’s tournament this far, what was at stake in last match of the competition between the two teams was the championship title.
To the disappointment of the 1200 spectators on the stands, the home girls could not win a single set against their strong opponent and lost 0:3 (23-25, 19-25, 22-25). In both the first and the second sets Luxembourg was able to take an early lead, but then committed some mistakes that allowed Cyprus to turn things around for 25-23 and 25-19.
The islanders stormed into the third set to break away to 8-1 and 16-8 at the two technical time-outs. Luxembourg had no other choice, but to take more risk at serving in an attempt to catch up. It paid off, as the team of head coach Detlev Schönberg hit 5 aces to narrow the gap substantially, but it was too late for a turnaround. Cyprus took the set by 25-22 and rejoiced with the gold.
Maryna Lavruk with 18 points for the winning team and Isabelle Frisch with 16 points for Luxembourg were the best scorers of the match.
Earlier, San Marino and Iceland had to face each other in a quest for a first victory in the competition and also for the bronze. The Sammarinese allowed their opponents to cash in on their great blocking efforts in the third set, but completely dominated the other three parts of the game to win the match by 3:1 (25-18, 25-14, 22-25, 25-15). San Marino’s Samanta Giardi topped the scorers’ chart with 20 points, followed closely behind by Iceland’s Gudlaug Jona Vigfusdottir with 19.
To read more news click on Latest news.
