In the final round of the outgoing year, Kemerovo “Kuzbass” hosted the Belgorod “Lions” instead. The teams were neighbors in the classification. Each club had eight wins and four losses, but Belogorye had the best balance of games, so they placed in fourth place and the Kemerovo Club in fifth.
In the last round, the Belgorod team beat Nizhny Novgorod ASK in four games. “Kuzbass” was visiting St. Petersburg, where they usually took the match to the fifth set. Alexey Babeshin’s team still won, but lost points and because of this lost Belogorye ahead.
In the last round, Kuzbass won a grueling match:
“Whoever had time, ate it.” “Zenith” St. Petersburg is further and further away from the leaders of the Russian Super League
All the leaders of the championship have already passed the test of the “five-set nightmare” of the Kemerovo volleyball players, now the time has come for direct competitors. Kuzbass coach Yuri Zenko said after the match: “I think no one expected such a result from our team against top clubs and today’s match is a confirmation of this. I’m glad another difficult “five hats” was in our favor.” Although at first it seemed that Belogorye would be able to lift this “curse of the five sets.” Alexander Volkov’s team confidently led 2-0, but something clearly went wrong. And in the end the hosts managed to drag the guests to their favorite fifth set.
Pari Super League – preliminary phase (m). 13th round
December 27, 2023, Wednesday. 15:00 Moscow time
Kuzbass
Kemerovo
Belogorie
Belgorod
Kuzbass: Fialkovsky, Kostadinov, Pakshin, Yakovlev, Markin, Krechetov, Petkovich, Golubev, Tavasiev, Lobyzenko, Tkachenko, Chereysky, Kashtanov, Asparukhov
Belogorye: Chekmizov, Tsepkov, Masliev, Tetyukhin, Bragin, Al Khachdadi, Poroshin, Chervyakov, Podrebinkin, Zabolotnikov, Krotkov, Jinyin, Galimov
Start with the guests.
From the first minutes of the match, the Kuzbass setter immediately began to load his centers Alexey Lobyzenko and Denis Chereysky. In Belogorye, Roman Poroshin chose a different tactic, flirting with his wingers, and the main threat to the Kemerovo team came from foreign players: Zhang Jinyin and Mohamed Al Khachdadi, who replaced each other at the forefront of the attack (14:17) . At the same time, the match did not go well for the Serbian diagonal Kuzbass, Dusan Petkovic converted only one attack out of seven (14%).
After Roman Pakshin’s attack, the referee had to stop the match completely because the spiker grabbed him from behind and he couldn’t get up. But, fortunately for the locals, everything went well for Román and he was able to continue the game.
Two attacks from Pavel Tetyukhin made it “+5” for Belogorye. A comfortable lead allowed the Lions to take the set to victory. The guests had the help of the Moroccan diagonal, which in the end scored two goals (25:21).
“Kuzbass” – “Belogorie”
Photo: kuzbass-volley.ru
In the second game the match was even (5:5, 9:9, 12:12). Zhang and Mohamed Al Khachdadi continued to score against Belgorod. In the home team, Dmitry Yakovlev entered the match perfectly, replacing Petkovic in the first match. A successful game on the net by the central Kuzbass team kept the Kemerovo team ahead by two goals – 16:14. But then the visiting point guard remembered Georgiy Zabolotnikov, who with his sharp attacks was able to equalize the score. As in the first set, in the end the soloists were Al Khachdadi for Belogorye and Pakshin for Kemerovo. At the same time, the second game ended with an offensive error: Valentin Golubev and Egor Krechetov did not know who would make the pass after Pakshin defended himself from Zhang’s cannon attack – 25:22.
Return to morality and strong will.
Kuzbass decided to replace the players: instead of Alexander Markin, Asparukh Asparukhov came in. The Bulgarian striker made significant changes to his team’s attack percentage (he raised it from 40% to 50%). And he became the most productive player at the end of the game. Krechetov immediately found a recipient for his programs: Asparukhov and then Chereisky. The latter also managed to score an ace on his serve – 12:7.
Alexander Volkov took advantage of all the timeouts, but the gap on the scoreboard continued to increase: 14:7. The mentor continued to believe in success: “Step by step we will be able to catch up. We can also take this lot.” And this practically happened with the Moroccan serve: the “lions” recovered an eight-goal deficit! And again everything was decided by the end and nerves, which turned out to be stronger for Kuzbass. The Belgorod team faltered against Tsepkov’s serve. And Pakshin, whose attack did not go well throughout the match, scored at the right time (25:23).
“Kuzbass” – “Belogorie”
Photo: kuzbass-volley.ru
The Belgorod “Lions” continued to fight in the fourth set, confidently winning the start with a score of 7:4. Although Pakshin periodically stopped, he regularly contributed points with his attack. And after 8:8 a tough and tenacious battle began again, in which neither team wanted to give in. Krechetov, with his variable passing, diverted the attention of the enemy blockers from the edges to the center of the net and used the tube. In Belogorye such connections were rare. Once again, the Belgorod volleyball players in the end could not maintain their advantage. The substitution to reinforce Kuzbass’s serve worked successfully: Slavi Kostadinov’s ace equalized the score. And Asparukhov carried out the finale brilliantly. Krechetov made a productive shot together with the Bulgarian, which took the game to the fifth game (26:24).
Feeling confident after winning two games, the Kemerovo team took the lead in the deciding shortened set. The attack of Pakshin, Asparukhov and Chereisky worked well. Golubev consolidated the game on the back line. In addition to all this, the block also began to work. The powerful attacks of Zhang and Al Khachdadi began to completely trap or cover, as at the score 8:5. After changing sides, Belogorye reduced the gap to a minimum several times (7:8, 12:13). Furthermore, Bélgorod had a chance on the Moroccan’s serve, but the diagonal was wrong after the break (12:14). Zabolotnikov was able to recover a match point. But the video review decided the result of the tough match in favor of the Kemerovo volleyball players by 15:13 and a resounding 3:2 victory in the fifth five-set match.
“We are very happy, we played another tiebreaker, I think the team believed that we would win the tiebreaker and we won. Today we showed our character at the right time,” said match hero Asparukhov.
Kuzbass’ victory allowed him to return to fourth place. Now Kemerovo volleyball players are literally one step away from the top three. The Belgorod “lions” fell to sixth place, also passing the club from the Leningrad region. Of course, everything can change again, but next year. On matchday 14, which will be played in early January, Belogorye will play against Ufa Ural. And “Kuzbass” will go to Sosnovy Bor, where it will face its direct competitor “Dynamo-LO”, which is on a good streak – four victories in a row.
The most productive player for the winners was the Bulgarian Asparukhov, who scored 21 points (75% in attack, which is rare even in the first half), Mohamed Al Khachdadi scored for Belogorye – 24 points.
