Bengaluru: Kolkata Thunderbolts continued their winning run in the second season of the Prime Volleyball League with a 4-1 (15-9, 15-11, 15-14, 15-11, 12-15) win over Kochi Blue Spikers at the Koramangala Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday.
In an earlier match, Bengaluru Torpedoes picked up their first win by defeating Mumbai Meteors 15-10, 12-15, 15-13, 15-9, 15-9. Tsvetelin Tsvetanov was named the Player of the Match.
Later, the Thunderbolts banked on their middle blockers and went soft from the service line with Ashwal Rai and Deepesh Kumar Sinha putting on blocks. With Kochi's defence line struggling, Vinit Kumar and Rahul made the most of it and started making powerful spikes.
Rahul and Cody Caldwell joined Kolkata's blocking party and Kochi's spikers Rohit Kumar and Erin Varghese found no space to hit their shots. The reception from libero Hari Prasad BS furtherhelped the Thunderbolts as he kept making brilliant passes.
A couple of errors from Vinit allowed Abhinav and George Antony to begin Kochi's resistance. But Cody and Deepesh shut down the doors on Spikers' momentum.
An under-pressure Kochi made errors as Walter Da Cruz Neto could not find any rhythm. Cody and Deepesh worked in tandem in the middle, putting on powerful blocks, while Janshad kept setting up Ashwaland Rahul for spikes.
Communication improved between middle blockers Walter and Abhinav and Kochi received a small ray of hope. But Rahul made back-to-back super serves to dent Spikers' hopes and Kolkata Thunderbolts picked a 4-1 win to climb back to the top of the table.
