YUKIOR won the MVL regular championship!
YUKIOR in the last, in the seventh round of the regular part of the Russian Championship in the Youth Volleyball League proved, which is currently the strongest youth team in the country. We are first in the standings!
To Kemerovo, on home court, the previously leading Kuzbass-2 was beaten twice (3:0, 3:1), Yugra residents also shared victories with Novosibirsk Lokomotiv-SSHOR (1:3, 3:2). Remarkably, that in the last two victorious matches YUKIOR played without its main setter, Maxim Kirillova, who returned to Surgut to participate in the Super League match against the main team of Kuzbass.
Senior coach Yukior Artem Khabibullin: “Initially the goal was to get into the top six. Later, when they realized, that we can fight for first or second place, aim for this result. Somewhere we got lucky, but we ourselves deserved this place more with our play. Heavy season, difficult games. Everyone celebrates, that the fight went on until the very end, it was unclear, who will be in what place. Fight for second place, for sixth, below, too, everything was decided in the last games, interesting championship!
At all, Gazprom-Ugra system: Super League, MVL, Major League “B” – gives results. For Max Kirillov, Vani Skvortsov, I find, practice in the Youth League is very useful, they built on this and started playing in the Super League. Guys, which do not qualify for international flights, play in the tower, we connect them too, and they help. Lots of games, a lot of practice, it's good for everyone.
The downside for us is, that we hardly train together: Kirillov, Skvortsov, Tarasenko with the main team, Krasilnikov played half a season for Izhevsk in Major League “A”. So we play from sight, how does it work out. And it turns out well! I was pleased with the last meeting with Novosibirsk: we agreed, let's let them play, who was less involved during the season and our guys won. Based on the results of the regular part, I don’t want to single out anyone, I will say, that I am very pleased with everyone. We are moving in the right direction!».
Now YUKIOR is waiting for the final and most important part of the season: Final six games. In the past couple of seasons we were in the Top 6, what is called, from below, and tried to get up. Now our task is to stay at the conquered heights, which will be extremely difficult, considering the level of opponents. “Fakel-2” made it to the finals with us, "Kuzbass-2", Lokomotiv-Schor, "Dynamo-Olymp" and "Zenit-UOR". The first round will take place from 4 by 10 March in Novy Urengoy, second round with 24 until March 30th will host Surgut.
