Estonian women's volleyball team loses European champs match to Slovakia
The Estonian women's national volleyball team lost their European Championships Group D encounter against Slovakia 3:0 on Tuesday. Estonia is hosting the tournament.
The score-line in Thursday's match by games was 26:24, 24:26, 9:25, 18:25.
Corner forward Kristiine Miilen told ERR after the loss: "I feel that we didn't fight as much as in the previous games, where we really left everything on the field."
"I don't know if it was fatigue or that we sensed we were backed into a corner. We didn't play as boldly or as freely as before. I'm sorry about that; we should have played this game in a way that there would be nothing to regret afterwards. That hasn't been the case, though, and I feel that we missed out on something."
The team started the tournament with a 3:0 loss against France, then a closer loss to Finland, 3:2, then a loss to the Netherlands, also with a 3:0 score-line.
The team's head coach, Alessandro Orefice, was confident of victory ahead of the match.
Slovakia had played one more game than Estonia already, meaning the meeting with the host nation was the last of the group stage for them.
Their record was two wins, both 3:0, against Finland and Spain, and two losses to the Netherlands and France, with the same score.
The match was thus a must-win for Estonia, who have one more game to go, against Spain.
While the first two games were fairly evenly matched, Slovakia was clearly the better side, after stringing together seven points in-a-row, and only allowed the hosts a total of nine points to their 25.
In the fourth and final game, Estonia remained just one point behind until a score-line of 11:12 was reached, after which Slovakia extended its lead, in the end taking the game 25:18.
Estonia's top scorers were Kertu Laak with 16 points, Liis Kiviloo with 13 points and Silvia Pertens with nine points.
Slovakia are through to the knockout round with this win after finishing third in Group D.
Estonia lies at the bottom of Group D now, though in theory can still go through if they take a clean sweep (ie. 3:0) against Spain, and even then only if Finland lose to the Netherlands.
European Championship games are taking place at the Unibet Arena, formerly the Saku Suurhall, in Tallinn.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: ERR Sport
