Pakistan’s junior volleyball team shines in Bahrain

Nukta Correspondent

The junior Pakistan volleyball team continues to make waves in Bahrain where it is featuring in the Asian Under-18 Volleyball Championship.

Despite their first defeat in the event on Friday, the Under-18 team reached the last-four stage of the championship.

Pakistan will now face China in the semi-finals on Saturday (tomorrow) after they went 3-1 down to strong Japan in their crucial game of the 15th Asian Men’s Under-18 Volleyball Championship in Bahrain.

The semi-final will be held at 6:30 pm PST.

A Big Step forward

Entering into top four also has ensured Pakistan’s spot in the next year’s Under-19 World Championship.

Pakistan had a fine start against Japan by lifting the first set 25-22. However, Japan made a comeback with a hard-earned 28-26 win in the second set. Japan continued to bring discipline and showed a lot of resolve to secure 25-18 and 25-15 victories in the next two sets to seal a 3-1 victory.

Japan will now face Iran in the semi-finals.

Take-off time?

“The team has so far played brilliantly. Although, we lost to Japan but overall we have done well in this tournament,” Pakistan Volleyball Federation’s (PVF) Director Technical Naseer Ahmed told Nukta.com.

“Pakistan’s volleyball is on the rise. This is our take off time. We have recently done extremely well both at the senior and junior levels and it matters a lot. If you click at the junior level, it helps you get good players for your senior team and it then guarantees you some good results which we have produced in recent time,” said Naseer, also a former Pakistan’s captain and the country’s much-groomed professional spiker.

Pakistan had started their journey with a hard-earned 3-2 win over South Korea before outclassing India in straight sets.

The Green-shirts then defeated Kuwait 3-0 before conquering Chinese Taipei.