OK Maribor visited snow white Akaa on the 1st November. The town got its first snow for this autumn just in the night before. Maybe the weather ouside helped Akaa-Volley to get more than 700 spectators to witness the victory of the home team in Akaa Areena. The result was 3 – 1 (25-17,25-18, 20-25,25-19). When Akaa-Volley had beaten OK Maribor in Slovenia in the previous week as well it will continue in the second round in CEV Challenge Cup.
Akaa-Volley was dominating the match clearly. Even if its reception was much weaker (45 %) than OK Maribor’s (60 %) its attack was more efficien; 53 % against 36 %. That was the main reason behind the result. Akaa-Volleys block took 14 points when OK Maribor’s statistics shows only 6 bolcks. But at the same time Akaa-Volley’s servers made 22 errors while OK Maribor’s 14 only.
The third set went to OK Maribor mainly because Akaa-Volley’s coach Olli Kunnari changed three players after the team’s way to the next round of Challenge Cup was secured. It took some time the team found the right rythm in its attacs. The fourth set was again quite solid by Akaa-Volley although OK Maribor was fighting quite well all the way till 11 – 11.
The best players of the match were the middle blocker Antti Taponen (5/+3, four blocks) of Akaa-Volley and the opposite Sani Adžović (9/+6) of OK Maribor.
Akaa-Volley will meet Ribnica Kraljevo from Serbia in the second round in late November.
Mikko Räsänen made seven points in the match. The successful pipe is always a pretentious attack.
