All matches in this round of Russian Superleague ended with the same score 3-0. After five rounds two teams, Zenit and Belgorod, lead the pack.

 

 

The same score, different games. Some of the straight set games are blowouts, some are closely fought competitions, some are expected and some are surprises. Moscow’s Dynamo expected to dominate over Tyumen and Iskra are much better than Yugra. But the outcome of Fakel vs. Zenit and Izumrud vs. Yantar games are a bit of surprises. After five rounds two teams, Zenit and Belgorod, lead the pack. Surprisingly, Zenit never led regular season before. The former leader Fakel is in the third place, the last year runner-up Iskra is sharing the forth and fifth places with Novosibirsk. Tyumen lost all 5 games has only one point.
For the first time this season Mikhailov scored less than twenty points and is not among the best scorers.
Enough words and numbers, let’s look into all these 3-0 games.

Yaroslavich (Yaroslavl) – Lokomotiv-Belogorie (Belgorod) 0:3 (19:25, 17:25, 23:25)
It is time for youngsters like Ilinykh, Biryukov and Mikhailov to settle a score among them. From one side scoring machine from Yaroslavl, from other side ambitious challengers from Volleyballgrad Belgorod: whose skills would reign supreme? Another interesting moment is Khamutskikh would play against his team and long-time coach. Before the game Belgorod’s coach Shipulin said a lot of good words about Mikhailov. But he also spent some time to find the way to neutralize Mikhailov’s attacks. As result he scored only 12 points, was blocked three times and had only 39% of his attacks was effective. With its leader covered, Yaroslavl’ team did not have much chances. Even in the third, closely contested, set there was not much doubt that Belgorod will win. Lokomotiv had just too much power and was better in most areas. Shlypnikov replaced Khamutskikh with Zhloba in the third set with out much visible effects. After the win, Belgorod has 13 points and is sharing the first place with Zenit. Very impressive work by Shipulin considering all the stars left the team. After third straight loss Yaroslavl is in the bottom part of the Superleague. Best scorers for Yaroslavl: Mikhailov, Titich – all 12, Zhurov – 8; Belgorod: Khtei – 13, Musersky – 12, Biryukova – 11, Ilinykh – 10.

Iskra (Odintsovo) – Gazprom-Yugra (Surgut) 3-0 (25:17, 25:20, 25:23)
Not much to say about this game. Ugra is not ready to fight with top teams of the Superleague. Schops was back into his best condition and that was a bad news for Surgut too. Yugra continued to use substitute setter Khabibulin. Schops scored 20 points for Odintsovo, Egorchev and Kalinin each bagged 10. For Surgut Bartman scored 9 points.

Fakel (Novy Urengoi) – Zenit (Kazan) 0-3 (17:25, 21:25, 16:25)
No doubt this is the central matchup of the round. Fakel was cruising with four straight wins. Kazan was in the close pursuit. Fakel team play worked almost perfectly and was the best in the league. The biggest question for the host team is what to do with the just returned from Puerto Rico Sean Rooney and Kevin Hansen. Kazan had their hard decision to make concerning wether to play or to rest Stanley who skipped already the final game with Cuba. Eventually Kazan kept Stanley on the bench, while Fakel started both Americans and barely recovered from injury Beketov instead of Zaitsev, Kosarev and Voronkov. Kosarev has to stay home because of the cold. Still I think it is a bad idea to put three new guys on the starting lineup. There is an engineering rule: “Do not try to fix the working machine”. Fakel was that machine that was working and working great. Everything was clicking like a well oiled mechanism. I know Hansen, Rooney and Beketov are great volleyballers. But I also know that after 30 hours fight from warm Puerto Rico to poral city Novy Urengoi and God knows how many hours time difference there is no way for both Americans to recover in three days. And Beketov did not play since second round and that is ten days ago. I cannot even jump serve after 10 days break, and I need almost a week to recover from 13 hours flight. It is amazing that Beketov served 9 times and committed only one error and Rooney and Hansen were out playing full three sets. Who knows, maybe if coach Kolchin rested Americans, Fakel would still lose, but not in such manner. Zenit started the same players and just rolled over the hosts. Everybody on the guest’s team contributed well, with Panteleimonenko scoring game highest 15 points, Cheremisin 13, and Tetyukhin 10. For the hosts Rossamakhin got 8 points.

 

Tetukhin said after the game: “Fakel is a tough team to beat with an excellent coach. I think if Sasha Kosarev played today, the game might go the other way.”
Boris Kolchin said: “Zenit is a better team and today they are better prepared for the game. I do not see a team in the Superleague that can matchup with Zenit. This season they got excellent spiker Tetyukhin and libero Verbov. This game definitely gave us some dose of reality.”
Defending champions proved themselves the team to beat. Great job by head coach Alekno. Heartbreaking loss for Fakel indeed. Let’s see how well and fast they would recover from this defeat. They will be tested by Iskra in the next round. Zenit with 13 points shares the first place with Shipulin’s Belgorod. Interestingly enough, Zenit is in the first place of the regular season first time in its history. Fakel still holds to the third place with 12 points.

Lokomotiv-Izumrud (Ekaterinburg) – Dynamo-Yantar (Kaliningrad) 0-3 (20:25, 27:29, 22:25)
These teams have a lot in common. Both teams played last year in the Russian Division A, both got promoted into the Superleague. Two last season games went Izumrud’s way with the same score 3-0. Lokomotiv won all home court games this season. But not this time! Yantar worked hard to put the losing streak to the end. Eventually Kaliningrad extended their win streak to three games in the closest combat of the round.
Yantar’s coach Gordeev said: “Weather was the same as in Kaliningrad: about +10C. That was good for us. Also, as a young team, we can take advantages of the intense schedule. We are happy to win and the whole team worked well. We still have a room for improvement and a lot of work to do. I’m counting of De Cecco to improve setting, and Nilsson to get better in offence.”
Nilsson was again the best on the Kaliningrad team scoring 20 points. Eryomin added 11 and Shakirov 10 points. Ekaterinburn: Gerasimov, Pyatak – both 11.
 
Dynamo (Moscow) – Tyumen 3-0 (25:19, 25:16, 26:24)
Although Dynamo is places closer to the last place occupied by Tyumen than to the first place, I think there is no way for Dynamo to lose to Tyumen. They should win even if they send 5 players on the court. And Dynamo did win after two losses. But it is still to early to say that they are out of woods. But Poltavsky’s return and, more important, his performance is certainly an encouraging sing for Dynamo’s fans. Dynamo: Poltavsky – 16, Sivozhelez, Berezhko, Bolkov – all 11; Tyumen: Boyarchuk, Andrianov – 11. Dynamo now has 7 points and improved a bit its position. But there are still 6 points gap between them and the leading duo. Tyumen with 5 straight losses and just one point “controls” the last place. Things are not looking bright for them. I would say Tyumen desperately needs the coming break in the Superleague season to regroup.

Lokomotiv (Novosibirsk) – Ural (Ufa) 3-0 (25:23, 25:20, 25:20)
This is another lopsided matchup of the round: sorry Ufa. I’m not undermining gest team. I’m sure Ural has good players and great potentials. Certainly they would have their days in the Superleague and enjoy some great victories. But that would be in the days to come. Right now the team is still under construction. Reid Priddy and David Lee returned from NORCECA Men’s Continental Championship. Considering their busy schedule some people expected Lokomotiv to rest them and use the tested starting lineup. But head coach Voronkov decided to play both players in the game. That worked well for the hosts. Both of them got 11 points. Lee had 4 blocks, two of them in the 5:0 run (from 8:7 to 13:7) that decided the fate of the third set. Priddy served greatly and aced three times. Among the others, Pavlov and Leonenko scored 12 points each. Veresh was the best for Ural with 13 points. After great game last round, Starovic had no-show-up night with only 4 points.

Numbers…. Well, a lot of numbers (stats and etc.)
Best Scores:
Schops, Nilsson – both 20; Poltavsky – 16; Panteleimonenko, Veresh – 15; Khtei, Chremisin – 13.

Best Spikers (Points/Errors/Succ %):
Veresh – 11/0/82; Egorchev – 13/1/77; Eremin – 14/2/71; Volkov – 10/0/70.

Best Blockers:
Schops – 5; Kazakov, Kuznetsov, Lee – 4.

Best Receivers (Total/Errors/Pos%):
Melnik – 20/0/70; Panteleimonenko – 22/0/68; Serikov – 34/3/65

Aces:
Pavlov, Nilsson – 4; Sivozhlez, Priddy, Musersky, Veresh – 3.