Russian Women Sweep Pool A, Worlds Berth

2018 FIVB World Championship – Women’s European Qualifier

• May 23 to June 4
• Results

No. 1 Russia stayed true to form cruising to its fourth straight win and securedPool A’s spot in the World Championships. The Russians swept Hungary to grab the group’s top spot, while Greece won its third match of the tournament to lock up second place in the pool.

Greece 3, Georgia 0

Greece trailed only briefly at the beginning of Set 2 in a 59 minute affair against Georgia on Saturday. The Greeks piled up 16 aces in the 25-13, 25-13, 25-14 win, while hitting at a 51 percent clip.

Georgia only managed a 19 percent efficiency on serve reception, which affected the rest of their game.

Greece tallied three aces in Set 1, nine in Set 2 and four in Set 3. Georgia Lamprousi and Styliani Christodoulou served up four apiece in the match.

Angeliki-Melina Emmanouilidou scored 12 points, with a match-high seven kills, three blocks and two aces. Evangelia Merteki added nine points.

Tinatin Tchautchidze led Georgia with seven points, including four kills and two blocks.

Russia 3, Hungary 0

Hungary put up a fight at the beginning of Sets 1 and 2, but boasting as many as a five-point edge in Set 2, but the Russians rallied to win both and then cruised to a 25-7 Set 3 win to claim their spot at the World Championships.

Russia won the match 25-11, 25-21, 25-7 with help from 12 blocks and six aces and a 19 point effort by Nataliya Goncharova.

Goncharova managed 18 kills to lead all hitters, while Tatiana Kosheleva added 12 putaways. Irina Zariazhko-Koroleva added 11 points, including six blocks and three aces, and Irina Fetisova added 10 points, including three aces.

“I always try to play the best I can for my team and I am really happy with today’s performance,” Kosheleva said. “I just hope we can continue playing in the same way.”

Greta Szakmary put up 11 points to lead Hungary.

Croatia 3, Austria 1

Croatia put up 21 blocks and served up 14 aces to overcome a 32 percent hitting effort in a four-set win over Austria on Saturday.

Austria stole away the first set after trailing 21-19, but Croatia rallied to take the final three sets to secure the victory. Croatia came back from down 22-19 in Set 2 to return the favor with a 26-24 win. The team then turned things around after midset deficit in Set 3, before cruising to a 25-16 Set 4 win.

“We played really well and we get along very well with the older players,” Croatia’s Katarina Pavcic said. “We have set an ambitious goal, which is to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.”

Croatia put up seven blocks in the losing effort in Set 1 and added seven more, along with five aces, in the decisive fourth stanza.

Pavcic put up a match-high 14 points with eight kills and five aces. Katarina Luketic added 13 points and accounted for six of the team’s 21 aces. Lucija Mlinar (13) and Bozana Butigan (11) also posted double-digit scoring efforts.

Sma Markovic managed 14 points for Austria, all on kills. Nikolina Maros added 13 points, while Sabrina Muller and Monika Chrtianska chipped in 11 apiece.