EEVZA-2024 Championship (women U-20)

Siauliai, Lithuania

IV round. January 6

Poland — Ukraine 3-0 (28:26, 25:22, 25:20)

In the central match of the championship of the Eastern European Volleyball Zonal Association among women's national teams U-20, Ukraine met Poland. In this confrontation, the strongest teams of the tournament met, which hadn't felt the bitterness of defeat yet. Therefore, the match could safely be called the unofficial finals of the competition.

The teams started the match briskly, exchanging effective attacks. Towards the middle of the set, our girls had problems with the reception, which the Polish women skilfully took advantage of (9:6). Next, Veronika Tverda began to load Andriana Pavlyk with attacks more often, who in those minutes almost did not make a mistake in any of the attacks. This helped the national team of Ukraine restore parity (10:10).

The initiative changed hands for a long time, and the mentors took turns taking time-outs. Soon after Pavlyk's successful attack and the mistakes of the opponents, the blue-yellow team took the lead with a difference of two points (18:20). Unfortunately, the opponents managed to fight back, and during the "more or less" game they put an end to this set with an ace - 28:26.

The previous failure in no way affected the psychological state of Artem Dyhtiarenko's wards. Instead, they went into the next set with double confidence. During the set, the girls managed to transform this enthusiasm into a solid advantage (13:17). However, Milos Maika's team, thanks to coordinated actions both in the attack and on the block, turned everything upside down again - 25:22.

Our athletes had a chance to win in the third set as well. However, in order to press Poland, they once again lacked stability and sometimes concentration — 25:20. This defeat was fatal for the national team of Ukraine, which won't be able to catch up with Poland in the competition standings.

Starting line-up of the national team of Ukraine: Heiko (c) (1), Herasymchuk (11), Starostenko (6), Zharkova (6), Pavlyk (18), Tverda (1), Drapak (l), Prokopova (l). Substitutes: Hrytsyk (9), Horbachenko (1).