Four of the eight fixtures of the eighth leg in the Polish PlusLiga regular season will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 22 and 23, in midweek action highlighted by a huge clash between undefeated BOGDANKA LUK Lublin and powerhouse ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle.
Unbeaten Lublin face mighty ZAKSA in highlight of midweek PlusLiga action
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Published 11:52, 22 Oct 2024
Lublin’s Wilfredo Leon ready to serve (photo: Tomasz Blaszczyk / plusliga.pl)
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BOGDANKA LUK Lublin host ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle at the HSW Globus in Wednesday’s sold out late match, starting at 20:30 local time (18:30 UTC). Cuban-born star Wilfredo Leon and company will aim to continue their victorious run that started with the beginning of the season and already continues for seven consecutive games. They are second in the current standings on 19 points, but if they collect their eighth win on Wednesday, they can take over the top from PGE Projekt Warsaw, who stand on 20 points and a 7-1 win-loss record, as they played their eighth-leg match, a straight-set home win over GKS Katowice, back in September.
ZAKSA, on the other hand, with Marcin Janusz and Erik Shoji among other top-calibre players on their squad, have been having an on-and-off season so far. Having lost as many as three of their seven games, they occupy sixth place on 14 points, desperate to get more winning consistency and catch up with the leaders.
Historically, the two clubs have met six times and have split them to three wins each. However, ZAKSA won the first three encounters with Lublin, back in 2021 and 2022, while BOGDANKA outplayed the mighty opponents in the three most recent meetings.
Midweek action starts as soon as 17:30 (15:30) on Tuesday with Asseco Resovia Rzeszow welcoming Steam Hemarpol Norwid Czestochowa to the iconic Podpromie hall. The home side are in 10th place on 8 and 2-4 and a game in hand, while the visitors from Czestochowa stand eighth on 10 and 4-3 hoping to recover from the weekend’s unexpected blow at the hands of Barkom Kazhany Lviv. In the only previous encounters between Resovia and Norwid, they exchanged four-set away victories last season.
In Tuesday’s late match, at 20:30 (18:30), Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie will entertain Cuprum Stilon Gorzow Wielkopolski in another clash between top-eight opponents. Aluron are in fourth place on 15 and 5-2, while Cuprum are seventh on 10 and 4-3. The club from Zawiercie leads the head-to-head series by 11-3 in wins. Cuprum’s most recent victory over Aluron dates back to January 2021.
Wednesday’s action will get underway at 17:30 (15:30). Defending champions Jastrzebski Wegiel Jastrzebie-Zdroj are targeting their seventh win since the start of the season as they face Trefl Gdansk on home ground. Also on 19 points in the standings, Jastrzebski have a good shot at surpassing leaders Projekt as well and climb higher than the third place they are currently occupying. It will certainly be a tough challenge for Trefl, but also an opportunity to at least partially make up for the shaky start to the season, which places them 11th in the table on 8 and 2-5. Jastrzebski have won 30 of the 40 previous meetings with Trefl, but the team from Gdansk celebrated victorious in the most recent match between them in March of this year.
The remaining three matches of the eighth leg are scheduled in November.
PlusLiga 2024-2025 - upcoming 8th-leg matches:
Oct 22, 17:30 local (15:30 UTC): Asseco Resovia Rzeszow v Steam Hemarpol Norwid Czestochowa
Oct 22, 20:30 local (18:30 UTC): Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie v Cuprum Stilon Gorzow Wielkopolski
Oct 23, 17:30 local (15:30 UTC): Jastrzebski Wegiel Jastrzebie-Zdroj v Trefl Gdansk
Oct 23, 20:30 local (18:30 UTC): BOGDANKA LUK Lublin v ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle
