Krasnodar volleyball players interrupted a losing streak

The game teams of the Krasnodar Territory did not have big New Year holidays. They ended the year late and started the new one early. “MK in Kuban” tells about festive matches in volleyball, basketball and handball.

To the roar of the fans

The autumn part of the season was tough for Dynamo volleyball players. At the start of the Russian Championship Krasnodar team managed to win three times, but then they were cut off from the winning path for a long time. The team dropped out of the Russian Cup, failing to compete with Lokomotiv and Leningradka. And the number of defeats in a row in the Superleague reached the unfortunate figure of seven.

The end of the last year and the beginning of the new one cheered up the fans of the team. Dynamo was the last of the Kuban clubs to finish 2022. On December 28, they hosted the prosperous Saratov Proton at home. The team was in fifth place. By the way, she has a close connection with the Dynamo history. The team has been headed by Yuri Marichev for a long time. It was under him that Dynamo won the bronze medals of the Russian Championship for the first time in the 2009/10 season. Moreover, he moved to the team during the championship … from the men’s Dynamo Krasnodar. The following season, he returned to the men’s team, which became the fourth in the Super League – the highest success of Dynamo, now defunct. The diagonal Natalya Malykh also plays in Proton, recognized as the most valuable player in the CEV Cup final 2015/16 against the Turkish Galatasaray in Dynamo. This is one of the most significant trophies in the history of the Krasnodar club.

The game against Proton was easier than expected. Krasnodar seized the initiative and methodically increased the advantage. Only the third party got out of the rut. The final set was won famously – 3:1 (25:21, 25:19, 23:25, 25:14).

The head coach of Dynamo, Pavel Zabuslaev, noted the big role in the success of the fans:

“They are not afraid of the weather, they are with us on the days of matches of other teams in Krasnodar, they were not embarrassed by our long series of failures. My sincere words of gratitude to people for such love for volleyball, for the players, for our club. We played well before, but this time we showed what we said in the analysis of matches. As a result, they forced the opponent to make mistakes, and he had serious problems with the line-up. But more important still was our game. Such volleyball – collected, high-quality, taking into account the opponent’s weaknesses – usually brings success.

Dynamo opened the New Year with a meeting with Leningradka. This team managed to offend Krasnodar twice: in the opening game of the championship and the Cup of Russia. The team from St. Petersburg spends, perhaps, the best season in Russian history: the team climbed to third place.

The beginning of a new game did not bode well: the first game was lost without a chance – 14:25. The Dynamo players were able to put this failure out of their heads. The best match in her career was held by Maria Bogovskaya: she scored 23 points. The tie-break has become the highlight of the championship. The teams went over the allotted fifteen points. Score 22 : 20 – after the winning point of Valeria Shevchuk. The teams spent almost two and a half hours on the site. The result is 3:2 (14:25, 25:17, 20:25, 25:23, 22:20).

– Faith in success helped in this match. The team did not lose heart, did not stop playing at the maximum in the most difficult situations, with any score, – said Pavel Zabuslaev. – Somewhere they scored good goals, put a couple of blocks, the pitch flew. So we remembered that we can play well. Well, our room! He gives the team emotions and self-confidence. The last two games were played to a real roar from the stands, and these are incredible emotions for everyone. As a result, we finished the opponent together with our wonderful fans.

Dynamo have five wins and fifteen points, which allows them to take ninth place. On the 14th of January the Krasnodar players will host Zarechye-Odintsovo at home.

Nine years is not a sentence

Basketball players of Lokomotiv-Kuban started the year before anyone else – on January 5th. Neighbors in the standings – Nizhny Novgorod – came to visit. The teams were directly crowded in the fifth or sixth positions, both had ten victories in eighteen matches. Loko was fifth, although Nizhny Novgorod won in the first round.

The situation, according to statistics, was conducive to revenge. Nizhny hasn’t won in Krasnodar for nine years. On the site, alas, things turned out differently. The Volga team achieved a fairly confident victory.

In the first half of the meeting, the leadership “dangled” from side to side, but no one managed to break away in the score as it should. The first half of the meeting ended with a modest performance – 35:32, the guests were in the lead.

The resumption of the game turned out to be critical for Loko. Nizhny Novgorod was able to significantly move away, and with the efforts of their former player, Serb Dragan Apich. The gap reached ten points – 44 : 34 – and did not think to decrease.

Lokomotiv did not have long-range shots: only four hits in eighteen attempts in the match. Josh Gray breathed life into the intrigue with a rare long-range hit, but this was a single surge. But the guests were still able to break away, their gap reached fourteen points.

Score 73 : 63 – a natural victory for the guests, who moved up to fifth place.

– We were aware of how strong the opponent would be to resist. But we couldn’t demonstrate a game that would be enough to win, – said the head coach of Loko Alexander Sekulich. — The beginning of the match was good, but then we lost the initiative. First of all, due to the physical superiority of the opponent under the ring. We quickly scored fouls, had to make forced substitutions and change the plan. Problems piled up, they started making a lot of mistakes in defense and attack, they chose bad shots – as a result, the accumulated uncertainty even led to the fact that they started to miss from the foul line.

Loko has three games left in the first part of the season. The nearest one is already on Tuesday evening on the road against Zenit from St. Petersburg. Then more meetings with an international tinge against “Minsk” and “Astana”.

Despite the defeat, Loko secured a place in Group A in the second stage, which includes the six best teams. These teams have secured a place in the playoffs but will play each other twice to determine the final places. Subsequently, the two best teams from the second six will join them in the elimination matches.

busy month

Handball players “Kuban” began performances in the new year on the ninth of January. They had a traditionally difficult visit to Togliatti. In the first round, Krasnodar lost at home to one of the leaders of domestic handball: in October, Lada was stronger – 27:25. The new game turned out to be exciting. Handball players fought until the last seconds. The denouement could happen any.

Most of the meeting was in the account of the hostess. They started to get active. The maximum “profit” was achieved in the middle of the first half, when they took the lead – 9: 6. Krasnodar quickly managed not only to win back, but also to come out ahead. However, their “escape” was limited to only one advantage goal. Kuban’s right winger, Diana Golub, scored a lot. She churned out penalty after penalty. No wonder that in the end she scored the most in the match – eleven goals, six of them from the seven-meter mark. Krasnodar had a chance to go to the break as leaders, but Togliatti scorer Valeria Kirdyasheva set the score – 16:16.

The second half was modest for goals. Which, however, did not reduce his watchability in any way: the reigning tension compensated for everything. A little stalled after the break, the guests – and “Lada” was able to take the lead by two goals.

The goalkeepers of both teams played well. At the “Kuban” Elena Nikolaeva tried. Yuliya Kuntsevich (fantastic fifty percent of shots saved) and Valentina Khotulevich played successfully together at Lada.

But the field players were quite nervous and made mistakes in the simplest passes, throwing the ball out. With the score 25:24 in favor of the hosts, Nikolaeva made a save, but Krasnodar lost the ball at the very beginning of the attack. The interception of Anastasia Shavman immediately followed, but she did not convert one-on-one.

In the last minutes, when Lada was leading – 26:25, Victoria Zhilinskaite did not score from the penalty spot. At the same time, the home team had only four field players. Shavman soon equalized the score – 26 : 26. She repulsed Nikolaev’s throw, but the partners could not pick up the ball that had gone out of bounds half a minute before the end of the meeting. And “Lada” received a new ownership. Krasnodar managed to neutralize the attack, but there was not enough time to respond.

The combat start of the year is 26:26.

In January, Kuban has a busy calendar, with six matches ahead of the end of the month. Already on the eleventh of January, a guest game against Izhevsk “University” will take place. On January 16, Krasnodar will host the formidable Rostov-Don at home.