Uganda seek strong finish

Strong finish. The Volleyball Cranes targeting 5th spot. PHOTO/COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Now, the highest the Cranes can go is by finishing fifth through the classification games that start with a clash against neighbours DR Congo today.

The Volleyball Cranes have lost two games in succession and are out of the race for the top four places at the ongoing CAVB African Nations Championship in Kigali, Rwanda.

A 3-2 loss to Rwanda in their last Group A game was followed by a 3-1 quarterfinal defeat to Egypt on Saturday to end any hopes of getting into the top four.

Now, the highest the Cranes can go is by finishing fifth through the classification games that start with a clash against neighbours DR Congo today.

Two more wins are enough to see Shilla Omuriwe’s charges realise fifth spot but errors from the last two losses must be addressed before looking at fifth spot.

Against Rwanda, the team struggled with reception and gave away points easily. When the reception stabilised, the team started giving away points from the service box.

The reception improved against Egypt as captain George Aporu dealt with most of the balls sent in his direction by the Pharaohs. The service, however, continued to let the Cranes down with almost every player throwing away points when his turn in the service box came.

Daudi Okello, Aporu, Smith Okumu and Dickens Otim, the senior players on the team, all struggled to get the ball over the net. Aporu believes everything, going forward, must start with a much better job in the service box.
“We must reduce on our service errors,” the skipper told Daily Monitor. “These errors haunt us at the end of the day.”

Head coach Omuriwe is also concerned about the many unforced errors from her boys and expects a lot better.

“The unforced errors are so many especially from our services and it’s killing us,” she said after the loss to Egypt. “If we can get some consistency in that department it will really change a lot for us.” 

Rwanda will face Nigeria in the other game and the winners from the two games will fight for fifth place.

Volleyball championship

Quarterfinal result 
Egypt     3    28    25    25    25
Uganda     1    30    18    16    21
Last group game result
Rwanda     3    25    21    23    25    15
Uganda     2    15    25    25    11    9
Play off positions 5-8 
Rwanda     vs.     Nigeria    5pm
Uganda     vs.     DR Congo    3pm