From February 16 to 19, 2023, matches of the final IX round of the Men's Super League-Budinvest 2022-2023 will be held in Chernivtsi. These matches will conclude the first stage of the championship, or the so-called "regular".
This round will place all the teams in the final ranking places and will form the future playoff pairs.
It is interesting that the final result of almost every match can slightly change the tournament position.
On the eve of the tournament, the tournament table looks like this:
The leader of the current season remains the team from the town of Horodok - "Epicenter-Podolyany". The second step continues to be occupied by VC "Prometey", and the top three is closed by VC "MHP-Vinnytsia-ShVSM".
Next, there are two teams that spent this round quite unstable: Kharkiv "Law Academy" (9 wins and 28 points) and Zhytomyr club "Zhytichi-Polissya" (9 wins and 27 points).
Next comes a trio of outsiders: "Reshetylivka" (5 wins and 14 points), "Security Police" (4 wins and 12 points), and "Barkom- National Team of Ukraine U-18" (3 wins and 11 points).
There will be plenty of exciting matches, but more attention will be paid to the matches of "Epicenter-Podolyany" against VC "Prometey" and "Law Academy".
And there will be something to see because, judging by the comments of the mentors of these teams, they are preparing for a real battle!
Serhii Kovalenko, head coach of the Law Academy: “There are no injured players, the team is preparing for the tour as usual. Going into a match against the country's champions, you always have to play, and put up maximum resistance, regardless of the tournament position! We still have a theoretical chance to climb to the third step of the tournament table, but... I don't think it's possible in practice. However, despite this, we are preparing to play well against Epicenter-Podolyanн. We set tasks for the players - to go out on the court and win!”
The schedule of matches of the IX round of the Super League-Budinvest 2022-2023:
February 16 (Thursday)
16:00 "Security Police-ZUNU-Dynamo" - VC "Prometey"
19:00 "Epicenter-Podolyany" - VSC "Law Academy"
February 17 (Friday)
16:00 "The team of the Poltava region. VC Reshetylivka" - "Barkom-National team of Ukraine U-18"
19:00 VC "Zhytichi-Polissya" - VC "MHP-Vinnytsia-ShVSM"
February 18 (Saturday)
12:00 VSC "Law Academy" – "Security Police-ZUNU-Dynamo"
15:00 VC "Prometey" – "Epicenter-Podolyany"
February 19 (Sunday)
12:00 VC "MHP-Vinnytsia-ShVSM" – "The team of the Poltava region. VC Reshetylivka"
15:00 "Barkom-National team of Ukraine U-18" – VC "Zhytichi-Polissya"
Watch online broadcasts of games on the YouTube channel Divisport Volleyball and on the TV channel XSport.