African Queens sweep aside Australia
Kenya remained on course to secure a historic play-off berth at the women’s FIVB Grand Prix, by bagging successive victories in the second leg of the competition currently underway in Algiers, Algeria.
Having outclassed Mexico 3-0 (25-15, 25-17, 25-22) in the opening tie of a one-sided contest at the Salle Omnisports Hall on Friday night, the African Queens added another impressive straight sets victory of 25-20, 25-16 and 25-15 over Australia on Saturday night.
David Lung’aho’s team, which missed the services of dependable setter Janet Wanja through illness in these two games, was cheered on to victory by a sizeable Kenyan population in Algiers, that included Kenya’s Ambassador to Algeria Moi Lemoshira, plus hundreds of Kenyans living and working in the North African nation.
“I am delighted with our recovery from our performance in Mexico. We have worked hard in the past few days to correct some basic mistakes, then my players have taken note of what it means to play at this level,” Kenya coach David Lung’aho told Nairobi News.
IMPROVEMENT
“Our target here is to win all our three matches by either 3-0 or 3-1 scores, so as to stand a chance of making it to the play-offs in Australia.”
Kenya has now garnered eight points from five outings in this competition, and now look set to leapfrog hosts Algeria and Kazakhstan into fourth position in Group 3.
These results are an improvement from a below par outing in Mexico, where the team suffered 3-0 set losses to Peru and Colombia, before narrowly beating Mexico in the other game.
Kenya will face hosts Algeria in a final group game of the tournament on Sunday night.
In other results from Group 3, Cuba beat Kazakhstan 3-0 (25-22, 25-16, 25-23), Colombia hit Peru 3-0 (25-17, 25-17, 25-23) while Algeria laboured to a 3-2 (25-18, 25-23, 21-25, 20-25, 15-10 ) win over Australia.