France Sweeps Again, Bulgaria Overcomes 0-2 Deficit in Pool C1 Finale

2017 FIVB WORLD LEAGUE

• June 2nd-July 8th, 2017
• Tournament site
• Results
• Pool C1
• Kazan, Russia

France got another sweep to move to 3-0 for the tournament (along with 9-1 in total sets), while Bulgaria came back from an 0-2 hole to beat Russia in five sets.

Editor’s Note: While teams are divided into 4-team pools for pragmatic reasons on each of the 3 weekends of the tournament, each teams’ record goes into a single table to determine who advances to the knockout stages. The pool standings presented here are to help keep up with each pool only, and on each day of the tournament, we will post a summary that includes the full table as well.

Pool C1 Standings:

France def. Argentina 3-0 (25-17, 27-25, 25-22)

France remained the dominant team in pool C1, crushing Argentina in straight sets to push to 3-0 to wrap up this round of pool play.

Stephen Boyer had 20 points and Kevin Le Roux 14 for a focused French attack that only saw 6 different men score points and just 9 see court time.

Argentina went with a rounded lineup, playing 12 men, but only getting 11 points from Cristian Poglajen. Argentina was outblocked two-to-one (10-5) and outserved 7-1 in the blowout, though they did commit two less errors than France.

Bulgaria def. Russia 3-2 (21-25, 15-25, 25-22, 27-25, 15-13)

In one of the most dramatic matches so far, Bulgaria looked all but dead before sparking to life and beating Russia to keep from falling to 0-3.

Russia went up two sets on a blowout 25-15 second set. But Bulgaria slowly ground their way back. First it was a 25-22 win in the third, then a tension-fraught 27-25 win in fourth set to send things to a shocking fifth set.

The decider was back-and-forth, dead even most of the way, but Bulgaria’s momentum was too much to overcome as they won 15-13 for their first win of the tournament. They now sit tied with Russia and Argentina at 1-2 in pool play, though they’re still fourth in the pool in points.

Tsvetan Sokolov remained dominant for Bulgaria, scoring 21 points, and Rozalin Penchev had 14. 9 Bulgarians scored points compared to 8 Russians. Maxim Zhigalov scored 17 to lead Russia, which drops its second straight match after a 3-0 blowout of Argentina to open pool play on Friday.