Lagos, Ondo through to volleyball event final at sports festival

Volleyball action at the festival. Courtesy eko2012ng.com

--> The battle for the men’s volleyball gold medal at the ongoing sports festival will be between hosts Lagos and Ondo State.

The two teams qualified on Tuesday after defeating their opponents Rivers and Imo respectively. Lagos dismissed Rivers via an astounding 3-0 victory while Ondo had a tougher battle beating Imo.

The match between Imo and Ondo began with Imo winning the first set (25 – 23), but Ondo fought back and took two straight sets 25 – 18 and 25 – 17. But Imo put up a brave fight in the fourth and final set but Ondo still won 25 -21 to set a date with Lagos in the final.

Team Ondo coach, Adesoji Balogun noted that his team had a tough time in the match because it was exhausted from the match it played on Monday.

“My boys were slow in coming into the game because they were tired from the match they played yesterday (Monday),” he said. “But I am confident that they will be in a better shape tomorrow.”

On what he thinks his team’s chances of beating Lagos are on Wednesday, he expressed confidence that his team, which is volleyball defending champion at the Games would do very fine.

“Champions will always be champions,” he said, “but in all, everything depends on how God wants it, but we will do our best.”