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On the birthday of head coach Alexander Volkov, Belogorie won the national championship for the eighth time in a row, but for this they had to pull out the match with Zenit after 0:2 and an unsuccessful start to the third set.
The Lions started well - 7:2. The team played great defense, guarded the attacking guests and scored, breaking away in the score. The hosts quickly forced Sergio Buzato to change Andrei Titich to Timofey Tikhonov in the final game. Vladislav Babkevich received almost no passes at first, and when they started connecting him to the attack, he tried not to hit hard, but to score points with discounts. Zenit's serves flew to Jinyin Zhang, and the most problematic for Belogorye were the diagonal positions in the fourth zone. In these cases, Zenit took several points in a row and caught up with Belogorie. When the hosts' attack began to fail, the guests took the lead and snatched the victory on the balance - 28:30.
The win has breathed new strength into the Zenit players. They were not afraid to take risks on the pitch, which bore fruit. The Belogorie game was upset, the reception and block were lost, and the St. Petersburg team easily took the second set - 16:25.
In the third game, they were again dominated by the guests. The attackers of Belogorie mostly turned out to be against the organized Zenit block, and if they beat it, a lot of balls were lifted by the opponents in defense. Babkevich played out. Dmitry Kovalev connected the first tempo not often, but effectively, and the players earned their points. Zenit led calmly - 10:14, until Zhang appeared on the pitch at the Lions and ruined the reception for Grebennikov and the company. Zenit managed to withdraw from his powerful serve, which went one-on-one, only after the score of 17:14. Now the hosts caught the guests with a block and forced them to make mistakes - 25:20.
Zenit did not slow down. And in the fourth game, he looked better in attack, he also took better shots, that's why he was constantly in the lead, sometimes even coming off by 3 points. Belogorie was forced to constantly catch up with the opponent, but successful stretches were replaced by effective Zenit responses, and the rivals approached the finish line with the advantage of the club from St. Petersburg, which really needed a victory - 21:23. And then the guests could not stand the pressure: mistakes fell down, the score became equal, and the Lions were the first to score. George Zabolotnikov's ace sent the teams to prepare for the tie-break at 27:25.
Now Belgorod residents have gained moral superiority after two games won. They stopped giving Zenit points with mistakes, blocked the oxygen to the attacking guests with a block, and they themselves played with excitement, as if this was not the fifth set of a grueling match, but only the beginning of it. We won back at 2:4 and, rushed to 7:4, brought the gap to 5 points - 12:7, and no longer gave up the initiative - 15:11 and 3:2.
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