Ranked third and first, the teams have won their last nine Tauron Liga matches
Published 10:00, 08 Jan 2026
DevelopRes and UNI Opole have the longest active winning streaks in the Polish League right now (Photo: Tauron Liga)
Two of the top teams in the first half of the 2025-2026 Tauron Liga regular season, UNI Opole and KS DevelopRes Rzeszów clash on Sunday in the second leg of the second round, determined to keep their long winning streaks going.
Ranked third and first in the standings, respectively, the teams will enter the court at the Stegu Arena at 18:00 local time (19:00 UTC) in the middle of nine-match winning streaks in the Polish League, which both started in October.
With the teams currently separated by seven points - DevelopRes lead with 34 (11 wins, one loss) while UNI Opole are third with 27 (nine wins, two losses) -, Sunday's match won't alter their positions in the standings, but could give the home team a real chance of fighting for the top as they can bring the difference down to four points while still having a game in hand.
One of the sensations of the current edition of the Polish League, UNI Opole started their campaign with back-to-back losses, the second of them to DevelopRes on October 19, but have since won nine consecutive matches and all possible 27 points, skyrocketing from 11th to second place in the standings. They did, however, go down in the Polish Cup quarterfinals last Saturday, falling to BKS BOSTIK ZGO Bielsko-Biała.
The second-best scorer of the Tauron Liga with 194 points, opposite Katarzyna Zaroślińska-Król has been one of the forces behind UNI Opole's strong campaign in 2025-2026. Mexican outside hitter Uxue Guereca, who's second in the league in aces (25), and American outside hitter Elan McCall, who leads in passing efficiency (61.22%), are other standouts on the team.
Their opponents DevelopRes suffered their only upset in the domestic season so far just a few days after beating UNI Opole, as they went down to PGE Budowlani Łódź in the tie-breaker on October 24. Since then, the defending champions have been perfect, winning nine consecutive matches to rise to the top of the standings.
The Rzeszów side has, in fact, lost just once in their last 13 matches, in a stretch that includes CEV Champions League, Polish Cup and Polish Supercup duels as well.
"We're in a really difficult and challenging moment, but if we manage it well, we'll earn a lot of positive things in our season," head coach Cesar Hernández reflected. "I think this period looks a lot like what we'll have to face when the playoffs come, so the more we're used to it, the better."
Ranked fifth in the league's scoring table with 186 points and the leader in aces with 29, American opposite Taylor Bannister has been DevelopRes' most productive player in the season. Libero Aleksandra Szczygłowska is third in passing efficiency with 59.38%.
The teams have met nine times in Polish League history and DevelopRes won all of them. They triumphed in the first round duel, held in Rzeszów, in straight sets.
Also aiming for the top spot in the Tauron Liga standings, second-placed Budowlani, who have 30 points (ten wins, two losses), play on Friday, when they host seventh-placed Sokół & Hagric Mogilno in Łódź at 17:30 (18:30 UTC).
Saturday's schedule will have two matches, with sixth-placed LOTTO Chemik Police facing 12th-placed EcoHarpoon NOWEL LOS Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki at 12:30 (13:30 UTC) and seventh-placed Metalkas Pałac Bydgoszcz hosting fourth-placed ŁKS Commercecon Łódź at 20:30 (21:30 UTC).
Tauron Liga - Match Schedule & Results
Two matches of the second leg of the second round of the regular season - #VolleyWrocław vs. MOYA Radomka Radom and Bielsko-Biała vs. ITA TOOLS STAL Mielec - were postponed and will be held on February 11.
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