The result in Akaa Areena: 3 - 1 (25-15,24-26,25-17,25-10)
Karelian Hurmos (hurmos is ecstasy in English) did not succeed according its name in Akaa today. Their coach, Daryl Tay (originally from Singapore) was optimistic before the match, but Akaa-Volley – and specially the outside spiker Mikko Räsänen – was dominating the evening in Akaa Areena.
Akaa-Volley has quite a wide roster in this season which gives a lot of alternatives in creating the tactics against various opposites. Today, the coach Ossi Heino changed three players compared the opening team of the last match with Raision Loimu.
Akaa-Volley had quite a nice appearance starting from the first ball of the match. The players were smiling and pushing each other to the best performance all the time. The captain of the team Panu Pitkänen served the home team to the lead of 8 – 4 already in the beginning and from that onwards there was not a single question which team is hosting the first set. Akaa took it 25 – 15.
The second set started like the first one – soon the score screen showed 7 – 2. But now the ecstasy raised up among the visiting team and Akaa-Volley made a lot of mistakes. Hurmos was efficient at the end of the set and finalized with 24 – 26.
In the third set Mikko Räsänen began to show his best. He was the number one server in the Finnish league in the last season and it seems he will fight to get the position in the ongoing season as well. At 9 – 9 Mikko went to serve and soon we could read the scores 13 – 9. Akaa-Volley had this 3 to 4 points lead until Mikko’s next turn to serve. Now he took the team in the lead of 24 – 17. The other ouside spiker Jere Heiskanen was the one who made the 25th point. Thus, the final points were 25 – 17.
All together 503 spectators had the chance to perseive a real Mikko-show in the fourth set. He started to serve at 3 – 2 and finalized at 13 – 2! And at the end of the set he had another round when the scores were 22 – 10. Again two aces and the last point from his attack as well. It was not a surprise that Mikko was awarded as the best player of Akaa-Volley - his statistics shows: 20/+11, 31 serves with 7 aces!, successful attacks 69 % and two blocks.
Next week Akaa-Volley will meet OK Maribor in Slovenia when the CEV Challenge Cup 2023-24 starts. We’ll keep you informed ; )
Number 16, Mikko Räsänen is certainly noted when other teams are considering their tactics against Akaa-Volley.
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