In the first match of 2024 in the Russian Volleyball Super League, the neighbors in the standings met: the guys from Sosnovy Bor received Kemerovo “Kuzbass” on their site.
Dynamo-LO finished the outgoing year with five consecutive victories, which allowed it to rise to fifth place in the standings. The Kemerovo team is in fourth place and the five matches in December were as long as possible – five sets. At the same time, Alexey Babeshin’s team won the last two: against Zenit St. Petersburg and Belogorye.
How Kuzbass beat Belogorye:
“Kuzbass” continues its amazing series! Kemerovo residents exhausted another competitor.
Surprisingly, this match also turned out to be a five-setter. And in general, brilliant in intensity, with many video views, communication with the judges and excessive emotions on both sides, which led to yellow cards.
Dmitry Yakovlev and Denis Chereisky were absent from the Kuzbass lineup for the match due to a viral infection. The coach of the guests opted for a scheme with three nominal finalists in the lineup. The diagonal place was taken by Asparukh Asparukhov. Serbian volleyball player Dusan Petkovic, although he was with the team, entered the court sporadically and did not show results. Inal Tavasiev came in at center in place of Chereisky.
Pari Super League – preliminary phase (m). 14th round
January 4, 2024, Thursday. 18:00 Moscow time
Dynamo-LO
Leningrad region
Kuzbass
Kemerovo
Dinamo-LO: Borchikov, Moskvitin, Kolenkovsky, Skrimov, Shishkin, Loginov, Barabash, Biryukov, Nilov, Pirainen, Tyushkevich, Dovgan, Fedorov, Litvinenko, Ivovich, Vishnevetsky, Strilchuk, Shenkel, Kayumov, Lapin, Shestopalov, Ilchenko, Demin, Pyatakov
Kuzbass: Fialkovsky, Pavlov, Kostadinov, Pakshin, Yakovlev, Markin, Krechetov, Petkovich, Golubev, Tavasiev, Lobyzenko, Tkachenko, Chereysky, Kashtanov, Grishin, Yulmukhametov, Kozlov, Vlaskov, Asparukhov
At Dynamo-LO, Serbian finalist Marko Ivovic did not appear on the court due to a leg injury. Alexander Klimkin opted for Todor Skrimov and Denis Biryukov, and placed Nazar Litvinenko on the diagonal.
The Kemerovo team started with confidence. With Alexander Markin’s serve, the guests took a six-goal lead, which Dinamo tried to recover until the end of the match. Thanks to the efforts of Biryukov, the Sosnovoborsk team managed to get closer to the rival – 15:17. But after the timeout, Kuzbass scored three points in a row. Dinamo could do nothing to counteract the Kemerovo volleyball players who had gained momentum and the first set was left in the hands of the guests: 25:20.
“Dynamo-LO” – “Kuzbass” – 3:2
Photo: vk.com/vcdynamolo
In the second and third games everything changed exactly the opposite. Now Dynamo seemed more serene and aimed at winning. The Bulgarian Asparukhov, who started the match so well, began to make mistakes in attack. Krechetov brought the entire attack to Pashkevich, who was occasionally helped by the team’s centers. The Atomic guys also stepped up their game: Tyushkevich, Skrimov and Artyom Dovgan distinguished themselves. Also in the game was Nazar Litvinenko, whose attacks were not enough to fight in the first set. Thanks to the efforts of the diagonal and the team captain, Dinamo was able to equalize the score in the match: 25:19 (1:1). And then the whole story – 25:20 (2:1).
Kuzbass, who had experience in saving 0-2 matches, was able to turn this match into the sixth consecutive tie-break: 25:14 in the fourth game. I must admit, not without the help of my opponent, who failed on all elements!
“Dynamo-LO” – “Kuzbass” – 3:2
Photo: vk.com/vcdynamolo
Alexander Klimkin took advantage of all the breaks and resorted to several substitutions: Sergei Pirainen and Denis Shenkel came on. With video reviews, he tried to somehow encourage his players and get them back into the game. After the match, Dynamo-LO senior coach Yaroslav Vasilenko commented on the situation:
“Unfortunately, this happens to us: in a formation we can lose more than two or three goals and it is difficult to go further. We failed somewhere, we didn’t come back as well, we didn’t succeed on the block, that’s what happened. But in the fifth game, thanks to the changes in the lineup, we were able to win.”
In the decisive fifth set, the fight continued until the middle of the match and Klimkin’s team left with a minimal advantage: 8:7. Then Schenkel’s attack caused a wave of emotions in both teams, after which Kuzbass player Andrei Tkachenko received a yellow card.
“Dynamo-LO” – “Kuzbass” – 3:2
Photo: vk.com/vcdynamolo
After this episode, Dinamo managed to score two more points: Biryukov’s block covered Pakshin’s attack and strengthened the home team’s advantage (10:8). Asparukhov’s attacks gave the guests hope for a positive result. But his own mistakes in throwing the ball prevented Kuzbass from finishing the game in his favor. After mutual failures in the service of both teams, the match point remained with Dynamo from Sosnovy Bor: 15:13 and 3:2 in the match.
Babeshin spoke about what the Kemerovo team lacked to win: “We lacked a little concentration when the experienced Dynamo-LO players simply held serve, we had to take it to plus-plus, take off and go somewhere, run . I don’t blame the boys in any way. When Mr Schenkel points to our side: “Come here”, there is no emotion and our substitutes show a yellow card; I didn’t understand it one bit, but that’s what it is, thinking out loud. This was not enough. In any case, I am grateful to my players, we had some small losses, let’s move on.”
Dynamo-LO’s victory allowed the team to overtake Kuzbass in victories and change places with the Kemerovo team in the standings.
The most productive player of Dynamo-LO was Denis Biryukov: the team captain scored 22 points (18 attacks and four blocks). The Kemerovo team includes Roman Pakshin. The finalist scored 21 points (15 attacks, three blocks and two aces).
In the next round, which will be played in four days, Dynamo-LO will travel to Ufa, where they will play against Ural. After the change of coach, things clearly improved for the team: out of five matches with the new coach, the Ufa team won three. The Kemerovo team will play instead against the bloodless “Fakel”, which barely lost its legs in the match with the outsider Nizhny Novgorod ASK.
