Galatasaray one win away from European cup

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Galatasaray women’s volleyball team players celebrate beating Italy’s Yamamay Busto Arsizio in four sets in the CEV Cup final first leg.

Galatasaray is just one win away from its first-ever European title in volleyball, as it edged Yamamay Busto Arsizio in four sets (25-16, 22-25, 25-23, 25-22) in the first leg of the CEV Cup on March 27.
The Istanbul team overcame a late rally by the Italians to win the first game of the two-match series in the second-tier European competition women’s volleyball.

According to the rules, Galatasaray will clinch the trophy if it wins the return game on March 31, and a golden set will be played if the Italians win the game.

Going into this match, Galatasaray had not lost any single set in their previous home games of this European campaign and the team started well by dominating the opening set and claiming it with the comfortable score of 25-16.

The Italians fought back in second set where they imposed their rhythm going up 21-13 before Galatasaray clawed back helped by the service of their Italian setter Eleonora Lo Bianco. The hosts turned the charts around moving up 22:21 after scoring eight consecutive points but that was all as the Czech duo composed by Helena Havelkova and Aneta Havlickova anchored Yamamay to the provisional 1:1 by scoring the next 4 rallies.

Yamamay dictated the tempo of the game for most of the time also in third before Cuban star Rosir Calderon stepped up for Galatasaray and she eventually determined the fate there with a classy performance to finish it off at 25-23 for the hosts.

A similar plot unfolded in fourth set with Yamamay controlling the operations but this time it was young rising star Selime İlyasoğlu that changed the course of the game with her spikes, supported by Calderon attackes and blocks by Lo Bianco (25-22).