Bulgarian defence was key to the straight sets victory over Mexico
Gdansk, Poland, September 1, 2014 – Bulgaria drained Mexico in straight sets (25-16, 25-17, 25-21) to earn their opening day victory in Pool C of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship at the Ergo Arena on Monday.
Key Points
• Bulgaria kept control of the match without any major Mexican surge in offence.
• Blocking worked wonders for Bulgaria, giving the Mexican attackers a hard time to execute an attack.
• Nikolay Penchev’s serve overwhelmed the Mexican defenders.
• Bulgaria started on a positive note, to improve their seventh place finish in the last edition of the World Championship.
Bulgaria got an 8-6 lead with Nikolay Penchev grounding some fine spikes, ignoring a tough Mexican triple blocks. Bulgaria continued mounting their lead that went up to 18-12 after excellent services of Penchev and Svetoslav Gotsev. Mexico failed to turn the course of events to their favour and despite the excellent plays of Daniel Vargas and Samuel Cordova, Bulgaria still prevailed in the first set 25-16.
A deadlock stemmed as both sides refused to give way that held the score at 11-all. Both teams struggled with their defence until two service aces by Carlos Guerra shifted momentum to the Mexican side. Bulgarian coach Plamen Konstantinov called timeout at 14-12 to stop the Mexican run. Mexico then committed several mistakes that allowed Bulgaria to take a comfortable lead 22-17 until the European side clinched the second set 25-17.
The third set started with many errors coming from both sides that settled two deadlocks at 7-all and 13-all. Andrey Zhekov and Tsvetan Sokolov stepped up by scoring service aces, giving Bulgaria the chance to maintain a two-point lead. Bulgaria managed to score key points to accomplish the straight sets win, with a 25-21 score in the third set.