Jakarta meets Yogyakarta in men's semifinals

JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta's men's team outclassed East Java 3-1 (22-25, 25-22, 25-14, 25-22) in the last qualifying match of the 2001 interchapter national volleyball championships on Friday to top group A.

Jakarta will meet Yogyakarta in its semifinal on Saturday after the latter lost to heavy favorite West Java 3-1 (24-26, 25- 21, 25-20, 25-20). However, Yogyakarta still managed to finish runner-up in the group. Group B champion West Java will face East Java at the basketball hall in Bung Karno sports complex on Saturday.

In the women's event, West Java tops Group X after triumphing over South Sumatra 3-0 (25-12, 25-17, 25-16) on Friday. West Java will meet Group Y runner-up East Java, which lost 3-2 to host- team Jakarta.

Jakarta men's coach Sarmili told reporters that his team was ready to play Yogyakarta in the semifinals. He had earlier hinted earlier that Yogyakarta was weaker than West Java.

"Whoever the rival is, we are ready. But we prefer fighting Yogyakarta than West Java in the semifinal," he said.

Sarmili said that he changed the team strategy after losing the first set of their match against East Java.

"I thought that East Java would apply a similar strategy to the one they adopted when playing Central Java on Wednesday but I was wrong. So I changed the strategy in the second set. Also, there are four players who could not play today because of injuries, but we're not too worried about that because we have good players in reserve," he said.

Jakarta rebounded after the first set loss, playing more offensively. East Java players managed to block some good shots but missed crucial spikes, which benefited the home team.

In the last set, for much of the game Jakarta closely trailed East Java amid the cheers of local supporters who began to flock to the hall on Friday.

East Java scored first but Jakarta managed to catch up with several solid blocks. After a rally, Jakarta's Heri Kristianto spiked from far outside the court to equal East Java's score at nine all.

Teammate Eddy Hartono repeated the same shot and East Java took the lead at 10-9, but a low service from East Java's Andik, who is also a beach volleyballer, failed to cross the net, leveling scores again.

East Java libero Taufiq performed a powerful spike to put his team in the lead again but Jakarta's Ade Kelana spiked to equalize at 11-11.

An uncontested spike by Heri saw Jakarta take the lead at 12- 11 before the home team maintained its lead to seal the match 25- 22. (ivy)