RSU/MSG wins gold in the Baltic Women’s Volleyball League

Last Saturday, the RSU/MSG team celebrated victory in the final of the Optibet Baltic Women’s Volleyball League (BWVL) in Tallinn and became the second Latvian team to win the Baltic League.

The Rīga Stradiņš University/Murjāņi Sports Gymnasium (RSU/MSG) women’s volleyball team finished the main tournament in sixth place, but they beat their main opponent, the Riga Volleyball School/University of Latvia team 3–1 and 3–2 in the quarter-finals.

Last weekend, the Baltic Volleyball League final four competitions for both women and men took place in Tallinn, Estonia.

On Friday, 1 March, the semi-final RSU/MSG team surprisingly defeated the best team of the regular season TalTech (from the Tallinn University of Technology) 3–1 (25:27, 25:18, 22:25, 25:22) and secured their place in the finals. On Saturday, the RSU/MSG team finished the competition in Tallinn with a 3-1 (25:22, 20:25, 25:21, 25:19) victory over Tartu Ülikool/Bigbank and won the Baltic League gold!

The winning team was led by Karmena Struka (16 points), Agija Ankeviča (11 points) and Anna Kovala, Katrīna Struka and Alise Juršāne Piņķe, who each scored ten points and had five blocks.

‘This time we analysed both opponents very carefully together with another coach Inga Ikauniece and statistician Toms Šķepasts. We worked on the game plan until late at night. In the final, the women tried very hard to follow the tactical pattern of the game, but the opponents were also thinking about the counterplay. Yesterday, Inga compared volleyball to chess, and before the final we studied how the coach of the Tartu team sets up the positions. We realised that after the second set he would send the most comfortable position on the court, so we changed ours and also guessed with the position in the fourth set. Both days we gathered for the morning workout and the fitness coach Andris Eikens contributed to the success,’ said Inguna Minusa, the RSU/MSG team coach.

This is the highest achievement in the history of women’s volleyball at RSU. So far, the team has managed to rank only 5th-8th in the Baltic League. The previous highest achievement was the victory in the Latvian championship in the spring of 2017.