Azerbaijani Igtisadchi downs Crvena Zvezda in straight sets
Baku, October 23 (AZERTAC). Though they were debuting in Europe`s elite club competition, the Azerbaijan women`s volleyball club Igtisadchi Baku downed Crvena Zvezda Beograd in straight sets (25-15, 25-16, and 25-23) on Tuesday to catch a flying start in the 2014 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League.
After losing the opening set quite rapidly, the hosts of Crvena Zvezda started playing much better in the second; they stormed out to a 7:1 lead and continued to set the pace at 11:7 before Dutch opposite Manon Flier anchored Igtisadchi to draw level at 12 all. After that, the guests from Baku dominated the scene once more and did comfortably cruise to the provisional 2:0 (25-16).
The third set followed a similar plot with Crvena Zvezda opening strong (8:5) but Igtisadchi was able to respond to tie the score at 11 all. At the second technical time-out the guests were up 16:13 and they increased their lead to 20:14 before Crvena Zvezda attempted a late comeback playing superbly especially with their block. The head coach of Igtisadchi, Bulent Karslioglu, stopped the game twice in an attempt to stand the comeback of the local heroines; Ljubica Kecman helped Crvena Zvezda survive three match balls but in the end Igtisadchi finished it off at 25-23.
Manon Flier top scored for the winning side with 15 points followed by team captain Wilavan Apinyapong with 14. Ljubica Kecman paced Crvena Zvezda in their losing effort with 13.
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