Table leaders PGE Projekt Warsaw widened the gap at the top of the Polish PlusLiga regular season standings, but only by a point, as they achieved a five-set victory in a spectacular home game against Asseco Resovia Rzeszow in front of over four thousand spectators on Wednesday evening. Jakub Kochanowski put up a solid performance against his previous club in this early fixture of the seventh leg, highlighting the league’s midweek action, which also included two postponed fourth-leg matches.
Kochanowski perfect against previous club as Projekt beat Resovia in five
Recap of PlusLiga’s midweek matches
Published 05:07, 17 Oct 2024
Projekt’s Jakub Kochanowski and Bartlomiej Boladz on the block against Resovia’s Stephen Boyer (photo: Piotr Iwanczyk / plusliga.pl)
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Middle blocker Kochanowski, who transferred from Resovia to Projekt between seasons, was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) in his new team’s rollercoaster 3-2 (25-19, 21-25, 22-25, 25-18, 15-9) win over his old team. He spiked nine points at an 82% success rate in attack, raised four kill blocks, landed a couple of aces and even showed some great skills in defence to earn this individual recognition. German opposite Linus Weber was another key contributor to Projekt’s success. He was among the starters only in the last three sets of the match, but helped his team with 16 points, including as many as four aces.
“We rebuilt our game from the third set, especially in serving and in the counterattack,” MVP Kochanowski told Polsat Sport 1 after the match.
Outside Artur Szalpuk led the way with 19 points. His French cross-court teammate Kevin Tillie added another 13, while starting opposite Bartlomiej Boladz also reached the double digits with 11 points towards Projekt’s seventh win (in eight matches played) since the start of the season, which kept the squad from the capital on top of the standings with 20 points.
The best scorer of the match, however, was on the other side of the net. Resovia’s French opposite Stephen Boyer hammered out a match-high 26 points, including three kill blocks, supported by outsides Bartosz Bednorz with 15 and Klemen Cebulj of Slovenia with 11, and middle Dawid Woch with 12, including five blocks. Resovia earned a point from their visit to Warsaw to improve to 8 points (2-4 win-loss record), but stopped short of moving up the table, remaining in 10th place.
Earlier on Wednesday, Steam Hemarpol Norwid Czestochowa produced a 3-1 (25-20, 25-21, 20-25, 25-21) away victory at PSG Stal Nysa to climb to seventh place on 10 points and a 4-2 win-loss record and leave their opponents on 4 and 1-4, just above the relegation zone, in 13th place. Czech opposite Patrik Indra contributed a match-high 23 points, including two blocks, to claim the MVP award. Outsides Milad Ebadipour of Iran and Bartlomiej Lipinski added 15 and 13 points, respectively. Their Stal counterpart Michal Gierzot topped the charts with 25 points, including four aces and a block.
PlusLiga midweek action started on Tuesday, when ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle achieved a 3-1 (25-21, 25-20, 20-25, 25-16) home victory over Cuprum Stilon Gorzow and rose to fourth place on 13 and 4-2, while pushing the opponent down to eighth on 10 and 4-2. Belgian outside Igor Grobelny and match MVP Mateusz Poreba shared the top scorer honours with 19 points apiece for the winners. Grobelny scored a couple of aces, while middle blocker Poreba impressed with four kill blocks. Another Belgian outside, Mathijs Desmet, was Cuprum’s leading scorer with 14 points.
The weekend’s programme offers the remaining seven matches of the seventh leg, to be played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
PlusLiga 2024-2025 7th leg:
Oct 18, 17:30 local (15:30 UTC): Slepsk Malow Suwalki v ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle
Oct 18, 20:30 local (18:30 UTC): Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie v Indykpol AZS Olsztyn
Oct 19, 14:45 local (12:45 UTC): Cuprum Stilon Gorzow v Jastrzebski Wegiel Jastrzebie-Zdroj
Oct 19, 17:30 local (15:30 UTC): PGE GiEK SKRA Belchatow v Nowak-Mosty MKS Bedzin
Oct 19, 20:30 local (18:30 UTC): GKS Katowice v BOGDANKA LUK Lublin
Oct 20, 14:45 local (12:45 UTC): Trefl Gdansk v PSG Stal Nysa
Oct 20, 20:30 local (18:30 UTC): Steam Hemarpol Norwid Czestochowa v Barkom Kazhany Lviv
