Staff 
The amount of buzz Turkish Women’s League received reached its long-time peak when VakifGunes clinched the Indesit Champions League title beating Fenerbahce Acibadem and Rabita Baku along the road. In the aftermath of this awaited title in great anticipation, the level of competition Turkish League seems to promise for the remainder of the season remains highly noteworthy, which was proved with the recent two epic games in Istanbul.
Last week, Eczacibasi Vitra hosted Fenerbahce Acibadem in their hall. Eczacibasi had wide open wounds following Gulden Kayalar’s injury and they greatly suffered the setbacks of the injury in the Playoffs 6 of Champions League against VakifGunes as the rookie libero Serpil Ersari was not able to fill the shoes of her predecessor. This time Lorenzo Micelli had another plan. Esra Gumus, the captain and outside hitter of Turkish National Team and Eczacibasi, was the new libero of the team in orange and white jerseys. What’s more, contrary to what Micelli had done until then, Yevgeniya Dushkyevich dressed up as the middle blocker rather than Heather Bown. On the other side of the court, Ze Roberto had a different line-up planned, either. Seda Tokatlioglu’s stepping up on the court as the opposite rather than Skowronska enabled Furst to show up in a Turkish League after a very long time. Eczacibasi started out on fire with blistering serves keeping Sokolova and Osmokrovic unable to attack and giving Aydemir no chance to utilize from quick middle slides. The whole balance of the game changed when Sokolova finally picked up her game as she passed the trickiest serves easily to Aydemir and attacked bravely both with cross-court and parallel spikes leaving Eczacibasi defense in shambles. Furst’s existence was truly felt on the court, either as she was sending signals to Ze Roberto for his ill choice of not dressing her up for Turkish League games until that day. Aydemir was mesmerizingly and surprisingly playing fast leaving Eczacibasi blocks unbalanced giving her attackers much room to kill balls. Eczacibasi, on the other hand, looked like a pure victim with no reaction strategy to bring to the court. For starters, Eczacibasi suffers a lot from her setters. Elif Agca is not only inconsistent but also makes a lot of mistakes. Her sets can easily be anticipated by the counter blockers and even with the greatest attackers of Europe like Francia, Darnel and Del Core, Eczacibasi was blocked throughout the match and was regressively unable to kill balls. 3-1 defeat at the end was a well-deserved score for both sides. Sokolova played her best game in this season so far and Eczacibasi was not promising at all as they headed to their final game of the regular league season, VakifGunes.
In Turkey, the 5% of the points youth teams collect are added to their corresponding senior teams. Prior to the game Eczacibasi’s youth team beat VakifGunes in straight sets. Nevertheless, VakifGunes girls claimed the Youth Girls title and contributed 2.95 points to their elder sisters whereas Eczacibasi had extra 2.80 points. This margin was only 1.30 points for Fenerbahce girls. When the senior game was starting, Eczacibasi knew that just a win would secure them a 1st rank in the regular league spot and of course their next season Champions League participation. If Vakif had won by 3-0 or 3-1, they would be the first team in the standings. Eczacibasi Vitra had their Fenerbahce Acibadem match-up roster against VakifGunes sending Heather Bown to the stands again. VakifGunes this time had Nilay Ozdemir in the starting six rather than Ozge Kirdar. Eczabasi was targeting Gozde Kirdar and Gizem Guresen with their floating serves and they were most of the time getting what they aimed. On top of that, Eczacibasi was managing one thing VakifGunes amazingly did this season: perfect block-dig system and counter attack. Eczacibasi worked pretty well for the first two sets. Elif Agca surprisingly led the team to perfect sets and consequently, Poljak was highly invincible over the net. Her attacks were no effect to Eczacibasi diggers and either Darnel or Francia was easily clearing the ball away. The tides changed when the 3rd set started. Guldeniz Onal was in for the not-so-well working Glinka. Nikolic and Onal duo was able to pass the Eczacibasi blocks. At 23-22; however, Elif Agca made an unforced error as she lifted and set the ball with two touches. That set the fate of that set, how Elif Agca and the rest of the team will perform in the remainder of the match. The whole reception system of Eczacibasi was in shambles, their memorized attack sets were easily blocked by Toksoy and Poljak and the whole team was making many errors. Expectedly, Eczacibasi lost in five sets. Fenerbahce Acibadem got the top spot of the regular season and guaranteed their Champions League participation as they also will probably have a safer and easier road through to Playoff finals. VakifGunes were the second and Eczacibasi the third which will enable the audience to see the eternal rivals play at least for three more games in the Playoff semifinals.
Eczacibasi took their 4th loss against VakifGunes this season and next Saturday the sides will face in the Turkish Cup semifinal in Izmir. Eczacibasi still has a long way to recover and pick up after Gulden Kayalar’s injury. Yet if they can’t clinch the Turkish League Championship title, Champions League will just be a dream in vain unless CEV does not grant a wildcard for them again. VakifGunes however remains in full contention for the title as now they are the big favorites to both win the Turkish Cup and Turkish League.
Murat N. Colakoglu (Photo Web)
