By Oviri Kelvin, Sports Editor,
Nigeria fell to a 3-0 defeat to host nation Tunisia to record their first defeat since the 2022 African U21 Men’s Nations Volleyball Championship started earlier in the week.
The Nigeria U21 men’s volleyball team started the tournament on a flying start, recording two successive victories, 3-0 against Morocco and Gambia on separate occassions.
Following the successive victories, with their focus to qualify for 2023 FIVB U21 Men’s Championship, the determined Nigerian team narrowly fell 25-21, 25-18, 25-23 to hand Tunisia a 3-0 win on Wednesday.
Tunisia won 32 points from service and 43 points from receives while Nigeria won 20 points from service and 42 points from receives.
Also, the host team had 4 aces, 9 maximum points in a row, 10 service errors and used 2 timeouts while Nigeria had 1 ace, 4 maximum points in a row, 9 service errors and used 5 timeouts.
Notwithstanding, Nigeria still qualified to the quarter-finals and have slated a clash with another North African side, Libya on today.
The Head Coach of Nigeria U21 Men’s Team, Sani Mohammed said the boys lost due to errors and the crowd which will be corrected.
Mohammed said finishing second and securing a quarter-final spot is an indication the team has potential of making it to the finals.
He said, “The loss to Tunisia is a wake up call to the team. We cannot afford to make mistakes in the quarter-finals because it means we are out of the title race.
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“Nigeria played against the crowd, they came out to support their team and Tunisia won,” Mohammed continued.
“The coaching crew have studied the match against Tunisia and all the lapses noticed will be worked on.
“If you look critically at the minor scores, Nigeria were leading before Tunisia came from behind to win the first and third set.
“Our match against Libya will be taken with high level of seriousness because we do not want to let the nation down,” the coach reiterated.
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