Jastrzębski take first spot in the PlusLiga semifinals

The top-ranked team in the 2024-2025 PlusLiga regular season, two-time defending champions JSW Jastrzębski Węgiel were also the first to secure a spot in the tournament’s semifinals on Tuesday, after they overcame Steam Hemarpol Norwid Czestochowa for a second time in five days to win their best-of-three quarterfinal series.

The series involving BOGDANKA LUK Lublin and ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle, which also had its second match on Tuesday, is still open after Lublin won on the road and created the need for a third and decisive match, which will be held on Sunday, at 14:45 local time (13:45 GMT).

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Jastrzębski started the series with a strong sweep of Norwid at home on Friday, but had to work much harder on Tuesday to avoid a third match and progress to the semifinals as they came back from a two-set deficit to win 3-2 (19-25, 23-25, 25-18, 25-20, 15-12) on the road.

Polish national team opposite Łukasz Kaczmarek stepped up to produce a team-high 22 points (17 kills, four aces, one block) for Jastrzębski in the five-set match. Three of his teammates, outside hitters Tomasz Fornal (17) and Luciano Vicentín (12) and middle blocker Norbert Huber (14), also got to double digits in scoring, which resulted in French Olympic champion setter Benjamin Toniutti getting the match’s MVP award for a second time in the series.

“I’m so happy that we’re in the semifinals,” Vicentín remarked. “We displayed some amazing teamwork today as everybody was ready to play and help the team. What we did today was incredible. We expected some difficulties today and they served very well, but I thought we played very well and survived. The end of the season will be tough, we need to be ready for anything and today we showed we are.”

As it happened on Friday, Norwid had the match’s top scorer, opposite Czech opposite Patrik Indra, who this time tallied 25 points (20 kills, five aces), six more than Iranian national team outside hitter Milad Ebadipour.

With the result, Jastrzębski are set to make their seventh-straight appearance in the PlusLiga semifinals – they won three gold, one silver and one bronze medals in the last six seasons.

Lublin respond strongly against ZAKSA

In the other series, Lublin were able to get back the homecourt advantage they had lost after losing to ZAKSA in front of their home fans last Saturday. On Tuesday, they had their backs against the wall, but looked reinvigorated and were able to produce a much better performance, beating their rivals 3-0 (25-15, 25-21, 25-20), and will decide the series at home on Sunday.

Lublin’s star outside hitter Wilfredo Leon, who had scored 16 points in Saturday’s four-set loss, improved his production to 21 points (17 kills, two blocks, two aces) on Tuesday and received the MVP award. Opposite Kewin Sasak and outside hitter Mikołaj Sawicki also got to double digits in scoring, registering 14 and 12 points, respectively.

Without star opposite Bartosz Kurek, their leading scorer on Saturday’s duel, who had to sit out of this match due to a back injury, ZAKSA had backup opposite Mateusz Rećko leading their offense with 18 points, all in kills.

The PlusLiga quarterfinals progress this weekend and, before the third and final encounter between Lublin and ZAKSA on Sunday, the second matches of the two other series will be held on Saturday, with Asseco Resovia Rzeszów and Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie meeting at 14:45 local time (13:45 GMT) and PGE GiEK SKRA Bełchatów and PGE Projekt Warszaw battling at 17:30 local time (16:30 GMT). Aluron and Project Warszaw won the first matches at home and will advance to the semifinals if they triumph again.

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