Jakarta meets Yogyakarta in men's semifinals
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)