Hyderabad Black Hawks scored its third win in five games defeating Kolkata Thunderbolts 15-8, 13-15, 15-9, 15-12, 8-15 in the Rupay Prime Volleyball League at GMC Balayogi Stadium on Tuesday.
Thunderbolts, without its captain and star player, Ashwal Rai (injured), looked out of sorts in the first set. The home team won the set quite easily thanks to Vipul Kumar, S. Praful and the spiking prowess of S.V. Guru Prasanth, who was the stand-out performer of the evening and also 'player of the match'.
It was a much better coordination between defence and attack, which saw Thunderbolts put up a better show as S. Aravindhan and Mohammad Riyazudeen combined well with Mathew August showing his class to win the second set.
But, Hawks was in no mood to give up as Vipul, Praful and Amit Gulia thwarted most of the attempts by the rivals to get back into the match.
Though southpaw Anu James, who came in as a substitute, got the angle and power in his spiking for Thunderbolts, the solid defence of Hawks made a huge difference as it won the third set to take a 2-1 lead in the contest.
In the fourth set, Thunderbolts came back when James’ spike got them the super point at 6-9.
But, again, as had been the feature, with Vipul’s assured presence, Hawks defence was equal to the task when tested. Vinit and Guru came up with some stunning spikes which split the rival defence repeatedly.
Guru served into the net to concede the second super point to let Thunderbolts come back at 12-14 but soon made amends with a thunderous spike to trigger celebrations in his team as Hawks won the fourth set and the match.
For the Thunderbolts, this was the first loss in four games.
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