It was double delight for Railways at the 63rd senior national volleyball championship here on Sunday as it clinched the men’s and women’s titles beating Tamil Nadu and Kerala respectively.
While the women’s final was a cakewalk, the men’s title-round will probably go down in the history of Indian volleyball as one of the greatest comebacks in the finals of the national championship. Railways was down two sets and staring down the barrel before it saved three match points in the fourth set and went on to turn it around and win the match 19-25, 18-25, 25-23, 26-24, 15-9.
Defending champion TN had no one to blame but itself for the result — letting its crown slip when it had one hand on it with some poor defence work and unforced errors in the final three sets.
For Railways, attacker S. Prabagaran was the star performer of the day. He, along with all-rounder Manu Joseph, kept the visitors in the game with some attacking play.
TN began well with attacker Naveen Raja Jacob and all-rounder D. Selvaprabhu playing well to help the hosts take a two-set lead.
However, in the third set, TN’s blocking looked inadequate, and a lot of the returns fell into no-man’s land with the team lacking coordination.
Prabagaran raised his game and was ably supported by blocker S. Bharanidaran in the third set.
In the fourth, Railways managed to take an early lead, and, for most part of the set, managed to hold a two-point advantage. TN fought back and actually had three match points, but failed to convert any of those.
With the fourth set in the bag, Railways started the decider strongly and raced to an early lead. From 6-4, it won six points on the bounce.
The home side tried every trick in the book, with a few substitutions in the final few sets but it was not enough to arrest the slide.
In the women’s final, defending champion Railwaysclinched the title in straight sets. Kerala could barely put up a challenge against Railways.
For Railways, Priyanka Bora, M.S. Poornima and K.S. Smisha played really well, and were in a league of their own. Smisha was impeccable at the net with her blocking, while Bora and V. Soumya landed some accurate smashes.
S. Rekha was the best performer of the day for Kerala, which paid the price for committing a lot of unforced errors.
In the second set, Kerala led 13-9 before letting the game slip and, in quick time, lost 12 points to trail 21-14.
In the third set too Kerala took an early lead but could not hold on.
The results:
Men: Final: Railways bt Tamil Nadu 18-25, 18-25, 25-23, 28-26, 15-9. Third place: Rajasthan bt Kerala 25-21, 18-25, 25-17, 20-25, 15-6.
Women: Final: Railways bt Kerala by 25-17, 25-21, 25-18. Third place: Tamil Nadu bt West Bengal 25-20, 25-19, 25-19.
