DevelopRes Rzeszow’s star middle blocker Agnieszka Korneluk was on fire in Tuesday evening’s first match of the Polish women’s Tauron Liga championship series against LKS Commercecon Lodz. She earned the match Most Valuable Player (MVP) recognition after leading her squad to a straight-set sweep as DevelopRes took an important edge in the battle for the national title.
Tauron Liga 2024-2025
Star middle blocker powers DevelopRes to victory in first leg of Tauron Liga final
Agnieszka Korneluk spearheads the team from Rzeszow in shutting out Commercecon
Published 05:22, 16 Apr 2025
Agnieszka Korneluk and her DevelopRes teammates celebrate (photo: Monika Plis / tauronliga.pl)
- Watch the Polish Tauron Liga Finals live on VBTV
In front of over four thousand fans at the Podpromie in Rzeszow, the home team delivered a 3-0 (26-24, 25-18, 25-23) shutout of their opponents. Spiking at an impressive success rate of 74%, Korneluk put away 17 kills in attack and added three kill blocks to her match-high tally of 20 points. Three more DevelopRes players reached the double digits in scoring - Brazilian opposite Sabrina Machado with 11 points to her name and outside hitters Marrit Jasper of the Netherlands and Monika Fedusio with 10 each.
Commercecon’s outside Natalia Medrzyk, who was brought in during the second set in the hope of turning the course of the match, used the little time she had on the court to score a team-high 13 points, all in attack at a 62% success rate. Meanwhile, her teammate, opposite Weronika Gierszewska, tallied 11 points for the visitors.
“The beginning of the match and winning the close ending of the first set were very important. I immediately remembered the TAURON Poland Cup final in Elblag, where the first set was also very close, and winning it helped us a lot,” commented Marrit Jasper. “It is a great feeling to start the race for the gold with a victory. It is important for our self-confidence and well-being. However, we realize that this is just the beginning of the fight and this series of final matches may be long. We still need two more victories to win this competition. It will not be easy, but we have a good start behind us. This is our first step.
“Each of us knows from the very beginning of the competition what our main goal is and what we have to do. I think that from the first matches we were focused on it and strongly committed to fighting for the Polish championship title at the end of the season. I think that we will go to Friday's match in Lodz with the same attitude, because now is the time we have been waiting for and preparing for throughout the entire competition. I expect that a lot of fans will come to this match and it will certainly be loud, as the LKS fans will be cheering their team on. However, I know that fans from Rzeszow will also come to this game, and besides, I personally really like playing in such an atmosphere.”
The second game of the best-of-five series will serve off at 17:30 local time (15:30 UTC) on Friday, April 18, at the Sport Arena in Lodz.
Meanwhile, LOTTO Chemik Police finished the season in seventh place. They closed the seventh-place home-and-away playoff series against ITA TOOLS STAL Mielec on Monday evening after scoring a second victory over their opponents, this time on the road by a 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-18) sweep with an 18-point match high from opposite Dominika Pierzchala.
The home-and-away series for the fifth place will be resolved on Wednesday evening, when the straight-set winners of the first match MOYA Radomka Radom host their rivals Metalkas Palac Bydgoszcz at 17:30 (15:30).
Also on Wednesday, the best-of-five series for the bronze medals will get underway, with PGE Grot Budowlani Lodz welcoming BKS BOSTIK ZGO Bielsko-Biala for the first-leg game at 20:30 (18:30).
