Today in Jelgava, the Latvian women’s national team recognized the superiority of the Austrian national team by 1-3 (20:25, 19:25, 25:27, 27:25). Lāsma Ozola, Elvita Dolotova, Paula Nechiporuk, Anna Rītā, Anija Jurdža, Vlada Pridatko and the “libero” player Kristīne Kramēna went to the test match in Jelgava for the Latvian national team led by Italian specialist Daniele Mario Capriotti, who is preparing for the European Championship selection tournament. Later, all the other players registered for the match also went on the court.
In the first set, the Austrian women gained a three to four point lead until the middle of the set, which they held until the end of the set – 25:20 in their favor.
Jurdža started the second set with a productive attack, who scored the first three points for the Latvian national team – 3:3. She also scored the fourth point in the attack (4:5), but after that, the Austrian national team reached 10:4 with the serves of Anamaria Galičas and several Latvian errors and in the middle of the set scored five points in a row again (19:11), winning the set with 25:19 .
As in the second set, the first point was scored by the home team in the third, after Paula Nechiporuk’s attack, reaching 6:3. However, another “point hole” worth four points made it 9-8 in favor of Austria. The Latvians responded to the Austrian three-point series (10:13) with the same – 13:13 after Megija Dambrecht’s attack, Latvia even had a set point after Liene Šimkuse’s attack (24:23), but the more experienced opponents won this set as well – 27:25.
The agreement between the teams before the match called for playing at least four sets, and Latvia had the opportunity to win one set today as well. Coach Capriotti made several substitutions, fielding Adeline Gerlin, Elsa Reckner, Kristina Leskinovic, Petar Nechiporuk and Junor Vageli, while Austria continued to play with their starting line-up with minor changes that did not affect the result. For the first time, one of the teams achieved a two-point advantage only in the middle of the set (12:10 in favor of Austria), but after two games the result was tied again. After 13:13, the coach of Austria allowed himself to replace Galic, but this did not significantly affect the result either.
Latvia won the set after trailing with 18:20. First, two attacks by Gerlina leveled the score, but after 22:22, Caprioti sent Dolotova and Jurdža onto the court, who scored three of the remaining five points, but Gerlina added a point to the set with an easy kick instead of an open court – 27:25.
Jurdža was the top scorer with 11 points in the Latvian team. Gerliņa scored nine points in one set, Paula Nechiporukas and Šimkus scored eight each, while three other players scored five points each.
Galiča scored “only” 15 points in the Austrian team after the great game yesterday, collecting three of them with a serve. Kora Šaberla was the top scorer for the visitors with 17 points.
Both teams made a lot of mistakes in their serves – Latvia 17 times, Austria – once more. In the attack, Latvia scored even more points (57:50), but the Latvians had much more errors (38:25).
“The good thing today was that we kept a lot closer to our opponents all four sets as a result. And if we were a little more confident, maybe we could have won the third set as well. Both teams were different today, but Austria changed less than us, which maybe means that our reserves are closer to the starting line-up,” said Capriotti after the match. “Honestly, Austria played better today than yesterday, much better, especially in serving, but we, for example, served worse today than yesterday, but the situation on the court was about the same. Today we tried more to prevent the Aussies from playing, we worked in a block and tried to disrupt the way the Aussies play. This one worked, this one didn’t, but we need more time and games for that. The players tried, although they could not always achieve the goal.”
Coaches Andreis Odinokovs and Inguna Minusa, physical training coach Attilio Ruggeri from Italy, physiotherapist Roni Antero Recola from Finland and statistician Mareks Maksimovs help Caprioti in his work, while the team manager is Kristaps Cherniavskis.
The national team of Latvia was drawn together with Denmark, Slovakia and Spain in the qualification group of the European Championship.
The first game for Latvia will be on August 20 away against the group’s favorite, Slovakia.
12 teams – winners of the first two places of six groups – enter the final tournament. Participation among the best teams has already been ensured by four host countries – Italy, Germany, Belgium and Estonia, as well as the eight best teams according to the results of the 2021 competition – Serbia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, France, Sweden and Bulgaria. Since the Russian teams have been suspended from international competition due to the invasion of Ukraine, a decision on this place in the final tournament is still awaited.
More about the EC qualifiers here: https://eurovolley.cev.eu/en/2023/women/qualifiers-area/
Latvian Volleyball Federation
