Women's volleyball team Rae Spordikool/Viaston makes strong European debut
The Rae Spordikool/Viaston women's volleyball team won its debut CEV Challenge Cup match before a home crowd, beating 14-time North Macedonian champs Skopje Rabotnicki 3:0.
"The key word was fighting spirit. In the second and third sets, we made a few mistakes. The opponent did surprisingly good things after that first lulling set," middle blocker Liis Kiviloo told ERR. "Our heads went down a bit, but at the same time we didn't stop fighting. I especially liked our aggressive attacking. Our attackers went all-in and attacked with confidence, it was great to see."
"What an absolutely fantastic match! We knew that the opponent is spirited, and their leader played very well today. But I believe we managed to stop her quite well. It's an amazing feeling to win in front of the home crowd," opposite hitter Kristel Allorg said.
Rae drew plenty of positive energy from the home crowd too. "390 people cheering us on so loudly. I feel like I've lost my voice a bit. I had to shout over all the noise. Very, very cool," Kiviloo said.
The score by quarters was 25:15, 26:24, and 25:18, in the Estonian team's favor.
The second set proved to be the most evenly contested in front of a full house in Jüri. Rae took a 12:8 lead, but the visitors soon caught up (13:13). The point-for-point battle continued until the end, but Rae eventually tipped the scales in their favor.
Rae's top scorer was the left-handed Allorg, who has been in particularly strong form this season, with 19 points. Silvia Pertens added 11; Kiviloo 10 points. The winning side had a 34 percent reception rate and 39 percent attack efficiency, scoring five points from blocks and nine from serves, with nine service errors.
The rematch is to take place in Rae's home arena today, Wednesday. The overall winner will face Olymp Praha in the next round.
"In defense, we need to lift the ball even more. Then it's absolutely possible to win again," Allorg said of possible areas for improvement.
"Nothing will be easy. The opponent will analyze as well, and so will we. Today we got the first proper video of the opponent. Before that, we had to prepare using sideways YouTube videos. Now we'll be able to make our analysis based on proper footage and make the necessary adjustments," Kiviloo added.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Henrik Laever
