Iraklis and Olympiakos stayed at the top
- Written by Georgios Chouris
The eighth round of the league was the round of favorites. Iraklis Thessalonikis is leading the championship followed by Olympiakos whose team easily won Panathinaikos.
On Saturday Iraklis won 3-1 (21-25, 25-18, 25-15, 25-22) the game against Finikas Syrou. Although Iraklis had to play without the injured setter Kostas Prousalis the team had the strength to wake up after the second set and finally managed to take the three points. Nikoalos Smaragdis the experienced middle blocker of Iraklis scored 15 points helping his team to stay on the top of Greek volleyball league. Finikas after the injury of Dangubic in the first set could not resist to Thessaloniki’s team.
In Athens Panathinaikos could not fight even for a set against his major enemy. Olympiakos team easily won 0-3 (18-25, 21-25, 19-25) in a 70 minute’s game. For the previous year’s champions Andres Roland Himenez scored 19 and Marek Novotny 10 points. Panathinaikos is in the worst position of his resent history facing big economic problems.
EAPatron took the three points with great performance against Kifisia. The Peloponnesian team won 3-1 (28-26, 16-25, 25-23, 25-18) leaded by Anastasios Aspiotis.
Pamvohaikos stayed on the third place by beating 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-20) PAOK with the usual suspect, the American diagonal Mark Dusharme scoring 14 points.
Sunday took place the tightest of all games in Thessaloniki where Aris managed to win 3-2 (25-17, 31-33, 25-22, 23-25, 20-18) Ethnikos Alexandroupolis in the tie-break. Aris used Rizopoulos as libero after the loss of the greatest libero of the championship the Serbian star Marko Samardzic. The president of the team had agreed to leave Marco because of his expensive contract.
Finally Lamia in the last game of the round did not found any difficulties to win 3-0 (25-17, 25-14, 25-16) against Apollon Kalamarias.
Standings (after eight games): Iraklis 22, Olympiakos 21, Pamvohaikos 19, Finikas Syrou 15, Ethnikos Alexandroupolis 11, Lamia 11, EAPatron 11, Kifisia 10, Aris 9, PAOK 8, Panathinaikos 4 and Apollon Kalamarias 3.
Best action of seventh (the previous) round games