Two heavy contender teams are making their way to the final four matches in the Indonesian volleyball league Proliga 2020’s second leg after securing victories from the defending champions on the weekend. 

The men’s team Jakarta BNI 46 defeated defending champion Surabaya Bhayangkara Samator (SBS) by 3-1 in a match held at the C-tra Arena in Bandung on Saturday. The victory was a repetition of the previous leg, which was held on Feb. 1, when Jakarta BNI also crushed SBS with the same score of 3-1.

Commenting on the victory, Jakarta BNI 46’s coach Samsul Jaiz acknowledged that his team had been forced to follow the opponent’s lead in the first game, which ended in SBS’s favor, 26-28. 

“We admit to have been a few movements behind the opponent in the first game. We also lost our setter Dio Zulfikri because of injury during the first game. It is fortunate that the players finally learned how to pick themselves up and win the rest of the match,” Samsul said.

With the three points from this victory, the Jakarta BNI 46 team secured the top position by collecting 19 points from seven victories and one loss since the first leg. 

Samsul said that the lesson learned for his team was to improve the players’ abilities to be more responsive and aggressive in striking their opponents. 

“This will be our biggest task as now we are stepping up to the big four,” he said. 

When asked whether Dio’s injury would pose a problem for the team’s endeavors, Samsul said he had no worries as he still had another player, Kadek Juliardi, the team’s tosser, who would be able to replace Dio.

“But then the problem would be, who would be ready to replace Kadek?” he asked.

Many had also praised Samsul’s strategy not to heavily rely on its foreign players, as seen when the team’s Cuban striker Osmel Camejo Durrutry had to be taken off because of a knee injury and Samsul decided to replace him with Ahmad Faisal. 

“We need to consistently train the players to be able to substitute and maintain the team’s solidity. It’s good to see that the strategy is working,” he said.

SBS team coach Ibarsjah Djanu Tjahtjono acknowledged that his side had to swallow a bitter pill from the match. He said a total evaluation was necessary to rebuild the team’s solidity and avoid the same fate in future matches.

“We are competing with time, but changes must be made in order for the team to be able to gain victory.”

On the women’s side, the Jakarta Pertamina Energi (JPE) team gained a clean-slate victory of 3-0 over the defending champion, the Jakarta PGN Popsivo Polwan. The JPE team booked 18 points from six victories without a single loss.

JPE coach Ziya Rajabov praised the victories, saying he always highlighted the importance of all players avoiding complacency. 

“I demand them to go all out in every match despite the number of victories they have produced,” he said. 

However, coach Rajabov also acknowledged that their opponents had performed their best too during the match. “There were times when my players were trapped in their own blunders. So we need to directly address that,” he said.

JPE defender Agustin Wulandhari acknowledged that JPP was hard to defeat. 

“We need to maintain our focus and stay humble. That way we could garner more points and watch our back,” she said. 

JPP coach Chamnan Dokmai said with confidence that his team still had a window to improve performance. Coach Dokmai said he intended to do a rotation in the team as part of his strategy to strengthen every position.

“This team still has to learn to improve its determination, especially how to pick themselves up whenever they get behind their opponents,” he said.

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