Politechnika writes history for Poland by advancing to final of Challenge Cup
Politechnika is the first team from Poland that makes it to the last stage of the Challenge Cup in the long history of the European Cups and will play there another Polish team, Tytan AZS CZESTOCHOWA, as tonight that side edged for the second time Belgium’s Prefaxis MENEN in the other semi.
Wojciech Zalinski opened strong for the home side (8:4) but the game was stopped for 30 minutes because of some problems with the electricity. After the operations re-started Tomis drew level at 13 but Politechnika got back to the front by the second technical time-out (16:14).
The guests made quite many mistakes and eventually the home heroes could pocket that section of the game with the score of 25-22 after missing three set balls. Tomis started the second set pretty well (0:3) via the attacks of Philip Maiyo but Politechnika did maintain a good pace; Tomis lead 16:13 at the second technical time-out and finally could go for the provisional 1:1 (21-25).
The start of set 3 was very close with many long rallies before Politechnika changed gear to claim a margin of five points by the second mandatory stop (16:11). The hosts looked very confident and the set was sealed by a serving error of Romanian Laurentiu Birau (25-22).
After another close start, set 4 unfolded with a similar plot as Politechnika opened the gap quite gradually but confidently (10:9, 20:16) well supported by the passionate and loud home crowd. The celebrations could finally start after the home heroes wrapped it up at 25-20 with the players and the fans looking already forward to the last act of the competition.
