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akarta BNI 46 crushed Manokwari Valeria Papua Barat 3-1 in the women'€™s division of the 2015 Pertamina Proliga volleyball tournament on Friday as the third week of first- round matches began at the Ken Arok sports hall, Malang, East Java.

Jakarta BNI 46, in second to last place in the current standings, had a solid performance from the start and did not waste much time to steal the first set 25-20.

However, Manokwari, two-time runner-up but currently struggling this season by languishing in last place in the seven-team standings, fought back to take the second set 17-25.

Unfortunately, it could not maintain its performance in the remaining sets as it fell to 25-18 in the third set and 25-18 in the fourth.

Coach Munawar said his team was unable to recover from its defeats in the previous rounds of the tournament, in which the team had failed to record a win in fourmatches.

'€œThey seem to be traumatized from the previous matches. As a result, the team was unable to develop its game,'€ Munawar said.

He also blamed the delay in player recruitment for poor showing this season.

One of the team'€™s foreign players, Sanja Clivunovick of Serbia, had just joined the team on the day of the match against Jakarta BNI 46.

'€œSo I can only help improve existing players. Most of the players we have right now are those who are leftover [from other teams] Proliga,'€ said Munawar, feeling resigned at the team'€™s low performance.

'€œHopefully we can still add a point or two in the remaining games,'€ he said.

In a completely different mood, Jakarta BNI 46 coach Svetlana Ilic of Serbia said her team felt invigorated during the match, the result of two-and-a-half months of intensive training.

'€œIt'€™s not easy to find good rhythm as a team. This is a result of our hard work in the last two-and-a-half months,'€ she said.

She added that her team had spent a lot of time discussing their games and analyzing their mistakes.

'€œLast week when we played Bank DKI, it was like we gave them the win because we made a lot of mistakes. But we learned our lessons from previous matches,'€ Ilic said.

It lost to Jakarta Bank DKI 3-2 during the second week of first-round matches in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Captain of the team Novriali Yami acknowledged that the team was communicating better, including with its two foreign players.

'€œWe were able to develop our game thanks to better communication among team members,'€ she said.

They both hoped the team could maintain its play in upcoming games where it will go up against Gresik Petrokimia and Jakarta Electric PLN team on Saturday.

'€œTomorrow will be another game but I feel good about it as the girls are in good shape and know they are growing as a team,'€ said Ilic.

Jakarta Bank DKI and Jakarta Electric PLN were scheduled to play ahead of the men'€™s match between Palembang Bank Sumselbabel and Jakarta Pertamina Energi.