Slovenia-Poland
Poland’s Aleksander Sliwka and Bartosz Bucko tallied 11 points each to become the game’s most prolific players. Toncek Stern was Slovenia’s top scorer with 8 points.
However, the match was not as one-sided as the final result may suggest. In the first set the Slovenes were holding up through their 11th point before Poland managed to break away with a series of 5 points in row. Wieslaw Czaja’s boys continued to spike and serve way better than the opponents to close the set at 25-18.
In the second set Slovenia was even able to take an early 4-point lead and control the game until 15-15. The first time Poland took over was immediately before the second technical time-out. Its blockers showed off their skills at the net as it piled up another impressive advantage for the final 25-19 in the set.
In the third set Piotr Badura’s impenetrable block (5 points) and some tough serving from Bartosz Bucko and Krzysztof Bienkowski is what made Slovenia surrender. Poland established total domination on the court and stormed to finish it all off at 25-12.
Sebastian Pawlik, assistant coach of Poland: “We are very happy about being in the semi finals. This was a very good match and I hope that we will play as good on Saturday against Finland. I also want to congratulate the Belgian team for reaching semis.”
Iztok Ksela, head coach of Slovenia: “Congratulations to Poland! I think this was one of their best performances. We played significantly worse than yesterday and we missed a few chances to reverse the result. During this championship we have shown that we are competitive enough to play with the best European teams. We were fighting and it could be said that we are satisfied with our result.”
Bartosz Bucko, captain of Poland: “We are very pleased with the fact that our team has won every single match at this championship so far. The Slovenian team is very talented and I think that they could have played much better.”
Jernej Vrhunc, captain of Slovenia: “We were fighting to the last breath, but Poland was much better and we could not beat them. We really gave our best to keep the score equal but we have not succeeded. Congratulations to the Polish team and good luck in semi finals!”
To read more news from this competition click on Youth European Championship 2013 M.
