Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, July 5, 2022 – Iran savoured their first victory in Pool A of the Preliminary Round of the 21st Asian Women’s U20 Volleyball Championship with a 3-0 match (25-20, 25-19, 25-21) on home team Kazakhstan on Tuesday evening at NU Sports Centre.
Iran coach was pleased with the team’s performance, even in front of the home crowd in the Kazakh capital.
“We tried to make a good representation of Iran volleyball. We planned everything around in this match against Kazakhstan and fortunately, we delivered with tonight’s victory,” said Boloorizadeh.
Iran outside hitter Roya Farrokhi topped all scorers in the match, with 20 points from 17 attacks, 2 service winners, and a block. Reyhane Fazeli posted a strong presence at the middle, converting with 6 attacks and 4 blocks and 2 aces.
Iran played well from the service line, which fulfilled the purpose of disrupting the passing lanes of their opponents. They capitalised on their height advantage, and played the flanks well with Farrokhi on attack. Mostly, they played better in transition with setter Sara Bata designing their counter-attack.
Host team Kazakhstan found themselves improving on serve-receive to better manage their offence. They enabled their hitters Polina Milyukova (11 attacks) and captain Ayaulym Muratova (9 attacks) to operate from the wings.
However, the hosts still lacked the composure and consistency in playing transition, for which their opponents had the clear edge.
Iran played far from flawless volleyball, as they suffered from many unforced errors. What eventually paid off was their patience, trying to be careful each time with their passing, until they finally find a good opportunity to connect.
“Our vision is to move forward as quickly as possible. We know we are a very young team, and we just started to change everything in order to match the speed and technique generally known in Asian volleyball. It is a very strong style that we need to compete against. This is the first time that the girls are doing it, and they have done a good job so far,” added Boloorizadeh.
Iran will resume play on Saturday, July 9, as they face Korea in 12:30 (local time) match. Kazakhstan will play against Korea on Wednesday, July 6 in the main event scheduled at 17:30 local time.
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