Frankfurt, Germany, June 3, 2017 – Two of Venezuela’s players scored more than twenty points each to lead their team to their first victory of the season in the FIVB Volleyball World League. After arriving late in Frankfurt and forfeiting their match on Friday, the South American squad overcame all difficulties to claim a 3-1 (25-21, 25-19, 23-25, 25-22) over Kazakhstan on Saturday.
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This win gives Venezuela a 2-1 edge in their head-to-head World League record against Kazakhstan, after the two teams split victories in two pool matches in 2015.
Venezuela started the first set giving a lot of trouble to the Kazakh defence. However, Kazakhstan fought bravely to close the deficit but it was not enough to start a comeback. The set ended with a Kazakh service fault at 25-21 Venezuela’s way. The Venezuelan side took the advantage of the many mistakes in attack and reception from the players of coach Igor Nikolchenko in the second set to double their lead after 25-19.
It seemed that the speech of Nikolchenko was a real wake-up call to his team. His players took an early 5-2 lead in the third set, but Venezuela caught up at 22-22. Kazakhstan answered with some great serving that destroyed the Venezuelan reception and had a large share of the 25-23 win.
The South Americans went ahead with their final attempts to finish the match after four sets. Helped by top scorers Emerson Alexander Rodriguez Gonzalez and Ronald Jose Fayola Hurtado, who raised their level always at the right time, it was almost an easy job in the fourth set that ended with a 25-22 advantage for Venezuela.