Prisons, Pipeline clash in CAVB championships quarters

By Oscar Pilipili

Kenyan dominance in continental volleyball suffered a major blow after Prisons went down 2-3 sets against GS Petroliers of Algeria in CAVB African Club Championships.

The Algerians overwhelmed the wardresses 25-22, 25-27, 25-23, 28-30, 15-12 in a Pool ‘B’ five setter thriller that lasted 123 minutes.

The implication of the result is that one of the Kenyan teams, either Pipeline or Prisons, shall quit the contest at early stage since they are drawn together in quarters.

Prisons finished as runners-up in Pool ‘B’ with win-loss ratio of 2-1 while Pipeline topped Pool ‘C’ with 3-0 record.

Pipeline and Prisons have met in the final of CAVB African Clubs Championships four times inside the last five years.

And so when the team left for Madagascar to participate in the ongoing annual event, expectations were high that a repeat performance was likely.

Prisons and Pipeline needed to top respective groups to avoid clashing in quarters and advance chances of an all Kenyan final for fourth year in a row.

dreams shattered

This dream was however shattered after Prisons went down against Petroliers.

It was a fantastic game full of thrill and action as both teams used different combinations especially in the first set which showed exciting rallies till the Algerian team won the set 25-22.

Prisons recovered in the second set to have a wide lead 8-3 and 16-11 at the technical time outs till Zohra Bensalem and Safia Boukhima regained the rhythm to lead 24-22.

Prisons would then come on time using setter Jane Wacu to arrange the attacks and win the set 27-25.

Aggressive fight

The fight have become more aggressive in the third set as the Algerians showed a highly disciplined backline defense which aided them to win the set narrowly 25-23 to take 2-1 seta advantage.

Prisons fought hard to win the fourth set 30-28 after efficient blocks from both teams.

Petroliers controlled the tiebreak using Prisons mistakes to win 15-12.

Water Sport (Ethiopia) played their best to fly past Kutlwano (Botswana) 3-0 (25-11, 25-16, 25-22) in their last Pool ‘B’ match.

The Ethiopian team sent their sharp services which disturbed Kutlwano’s reception and aided their attacks to organise the combinations properly.

Water Sports finish the pool matches in the third position with 1-2 record to be ranked third leaving Kutlwano at the bottom of the pool 0-3.

Pipeline (Kenya) had little difficult in dismissing inexperienced Le AS (Burundi) easily 3-0 (25-15, 25-9, 25-10) in a one-side Pool ‘C’ game fully controlled by the winners.

Prisons beat Pipeline both in African Club Championships and National league play-offs last year.