Poland continue to cruise, sweep Türkiye in Hong Kong

Poland passed another difficult test in the Volleyball Nations League 2023 with flying colors as the Europeans claimed their sixth victory in the tournament on Thursday, against a strong Türkiye team in Hong Kong, China.

The undefeated leaders of the VNL 2023, the Polish overcame their European rivals in three sets (25-22, 25-20, 30-28) and regained the top spot in the standings, which they had lost to China two days ago.

• Watch Volleyball Nations League 2023 live on VBTV

Still without star setter Joanna Wolosz, the team coached by Stefano Lavarini saw their key players step up and lead the team to a strong victory against the Turkish, who are in fifth place in the VNL 2023.

The top scorer of the tournament so far, opposite Magdalena Stysiak produced 17 points to help her team triumph, getting 15 kills and two blocks. Team captain and middle blocker Agnieszka Korneluk added another 13 (seven kills, two aces, four blocks), while outside hitter Martyna Lukasik also reached double digits with 11 points, all in kills.

“That third set was crazy,” libero Maria Stenzel said, mentioning the Polish comeback at the end. “It was a very important victory for us as it shows we can beat any team. I’m still a little bit in shock with our campaign because we hadn’t had a moment like this for a long time. This season has been amazing from the beginning and I’m very proud of the team. Türkiye came with a different formation today, but we focused on our side of the court. If you want to beat any team, you need to be ready for anything and we were.”

Türkiye had the top scorer of the match in star opposite Melissa Vargas, with 24 points (21 kills, two aces, one block), but the Cuban-born player was the only one to score in double digits in the team – opposite Ebrar Karakurt, who played as an outside hitter, came next with nine.

**Volleyball Nations League 2023: full schedule and results**

The Polish victory happened in the second match of the day in Hong Kong on Friday. In the first encounter on Thursday, Canada topped Bulgaria 3-0 (25-15, 25-13, 25-15) to secure their second victory in the season.

Opposite Kiera Van Ryk, who joined the team this week, had a match-high 15 points (12 kills, one ace, two blocks), followed by outside hitter Hilary Howe, who tallied 13. Bulgaria got nine points from outside hitter Maria Yordanova.

Three more matches will be held in Hong Kong on Friday, with Türkiye and Canada battling at 13:30 local time (5:30 UTC), Poland and the Netherlands playing each other at 17:00 local time (09:00 UTC) and China and Bulgaria closing the daily schedule at 20:30 local time (12:30 UTC).

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