Indonesia, fresh from winning first leg of the last week’s inaugural Southeast Asian Men’s Volleyball League (SEA V. League) on home soil, lived up to expectations on Friday to pull off dramatic 3-1 win against Vietnam, as Thailand stunned hosts Philippines in hard-fought five-set thriller on action-packed Day 1 of the second leg at the City of Santa Rosa Multi-Purpose Complex in Laguna.
The SEA V. League (formerly known as Asean Grand Prix) is a series of international volleyball tournaments in Southeast Asia featuring men’s and women’s teams from Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia and organized with aims of helping uplevel the Southeast Asian teams’ performances apart from promoting volleyball in the region and strengthening cordial relationship among the SEA nations.
The SEA Men’s V. League is split into two legs – the first leg at Padepokan Voli Jenderal Polisi Kunarto Gymnasium in Jakarta, Indonesia between July 21 and 23 came to a close last Sunday, with the host side being crowned champions, followed respectively by Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines.
The second leg is now underway in Philippines from July 28 to 30, with the quartet team fighting it out in the single round-robin competition.
On Friday, the first day of the three-day tournament, Indonesia, current world No.68 and defending successive three-time Southeast Asian Games winners, remained formidable with the likes of Farhan Halim, Hendra Kurniawan and Fahri Septian Putratama, three of them won the respective Best Outside Spiker, the Best Middle Blocker and the MVP at the first leg competition. However, Fahri played only in the first two sets before head coach Chinese Jiang Jie shuffled the lineup and replaced him with another one for the rest of the match.
World No.56 Vietnam came back stronger in this second leg to seriously challenge the tough opponents. Indonesia took the close first set 25-23, dropped their rhythm to go down 21-25 in the second set, but bounced back mightily to keep their hopes on track with winning two sets in a row to wrap up the match 3-1.
Dimas Saputra emerged as the top scorer of the encounter with a match-high 22 points from 21 attacks and one block for Indonesia, while Farhan Halim and Hendra Kurniawan added another 14 and 13 points respectively. Nguyen Ngoc Thuan led Vietnam with 17 points including 16 attacks from 36 attempts.
Indonesia will next take on hosts Philippines on Saturday, with Vietnam going up against Thailand.
On Friday, Thailand struggled hard to beat Philippines in epic tie-breaker 26-24, 25-27, 21-25, 25-23, 17-15 in exhausting 145 minutes.
Thailand, fielding a mixed team of young players whose squad finished 8th place at the recent FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship in Bahrain and experienced seniors including hard-hitting Wanchai Tabwises, clinched the closely-contested first set 26-24, but Philippines, powered by Bryan Bagunas and Marck Espejo, regarded as two of the country’s top spikers, hit back to win the next two sets 27-25, 25-21 for a 2-1 advantage.
As Thailand led 24-23 and needed only one more point to take the fourth set, an aggressive spike from Thai young star Supakorn Jenthaisong went wide to force deuce. Fortunately, Thailand remained in great form to win two points in a row for the set win 25-23 and 2-2 tie.
In the do-or-die tiebreaker, the host side captured an early lead with two-point clear at 8-6, but Thailand, with Jakkrit Thanomnoi and Supakorn on fire in attack, held their nerves to catch the rivals at 12-12 and 14-14.
Both sides gave it all out to level it at 15-15 before Jakkrit Chantrai came from behind for a fantastic sliding attack to move Thailand in front 16-15 and once again, Jakkrit, joined forces by Chaiwat Thungkham, effectively blocked an aggressive attack from Bagunas to end the hosts’ challenge in this hard-fought set 17-15 and the thrilling match.
Supakorn Jenthaisong and Jakkrit Thanomnoi became the most productive players for Thailand with 28 and 22 points respectively. Bryan Bagunas delivered 25 points for Philippines, while Marck Espejo and rising star Steven Charles Rotter added 24 and 17 points respectively.
At the end of the first day, Indonesia went atop the standing with 3 points, while Thailand had only 2 points to trail in second place. Philippines got one point from the 2-3 loss to Thailand to come in third position and Vietnam had no point awarded to come in fourth.
Thailand will next take on Vietnam, while hosts Philippines will go up against Indonesia.
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