Lithuanian volleyball players lost their last tournament match on Sunday 2:3 (9:25, 25:14, 25:23, 22:25, 12:15) to the Albanian team, but this did not prevent them from securing first place and earning a ticket to the main stage of the European League.
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The Lithuanian national team scored 7 points in the group. Albania, which took second place with 6 points, also qualified for the EuroLeague. The hosts Denmark and Luxembourg were left out.
In the last match, the Lithuanians had no countermeasures in the first set against the Albanians who were fired up for a do-or-die battle. However, coached by Pole Mateusz Zarczynski, the Lithuanians took the initiative in the second set and confidently leveled the score.
The third set was very intense. Although the Albanians led for a large part of the time, the fiercely competing Lithuanian volleyball players managed to take the lead at the end and eventually win the set. This secured first place for the Lithuanians and achieved all their goals.
The fourth and fifth sets were also closely contested, with the Albanian team, who had more motivation, playing more accurately at the end.
Martyna Paukštytė scored 20 points for the Lithuanian team, Anastasija Jesipenko 13, Monika Šalkutė 11, Barbora Rakauskaitė 10, Rūta Staniulytė 5, and Karina Vilkicka and Arina Petuchova 2 each.
The most prominent player in the Albanian team was Erblira Bici, who plays in Italy’s top league, with 32 points.
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“The feeling is really unreal. This is one of the best achievements in Lithuanian volleyball history, so I am really happy that our hard work has yielded such good results. What I liked most was our team play, especially in defense. It is also important that we had good substitutions at crucial moments,” shared Lithuanian national team captain M. Šalkutė.
Having achieved their goal, the Lithuanian volleyball players extended their season for a whole month. Now the Lithuanians will compete for three consecutive weekends in the main stage of the CEV European League.
From June 5-7, the Lithuanians will play in Croatia against the teams of that country and Greece. From June 12-14, they will visit Sweden, where they will face the Swedish and Bosnia and Herzegovina national teams.
Meanwhile, from June 19-21, Lithuanian volleyball players can be supported in our country. The Lithuanians will host the teams of Romania and Portugal.
“I think that in the European League our goal now will be to perform as well as possible, collect wins and sets, so that we can raise the national team’s ranking for next year,” emphasized M. Šalkutė.
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