2008 Women’s African Clubs Champions Championship- Cairo, Egypt

Day 1 Ahly, KC Bank and Mouloudia achieve the first victory Cairo, Egypt, April 27, 2008- The organizing team and the defending champions Al Ahly of Egypt and KC Bank of Kenya and Mouloudia of Algeria achieved their first victory in the opening day of the 2008 Women’s African Clubs Champions Championship as they defeated Nkumba University of Uganda, VC Canon of RD Congo and Al Shams of Egypt respectively here at Abdalla Al Faysal Hall in Ahly club Cairo, Egypt on Sunday. CAVB President Dr. Amr Elwani opened the competition in presence of many guests of honor led by Local Organizing Committee Mr. Mohamed Abdelwahab, Ahly treasurer and Board member Mahmoud Bagneed, Shams president Abdel Monem El Malah, the control committee president Mr. Baba Sy, CC member Amada Sidiyane and referee delegate Salamba and CAVB technical director Howyda Mondy. The competition will feature three matches on Monday as Poisons of Kenya plays Bafia of Cameroon in Pool A, VC Canon of RD Congo meets Nkumba Univrsity of Uganda and Mafolofolo of Botswana vs. Shams of Egypt in Pool B. Al Ahly vs. Nkumba University Al Ahly of Egypt swept Nkumba University of Uganda 3-0 (25-12, 25-8, 25-17) in 59 minutes. Al Ahly coach played with all his list of players to give all the chance to all the team before the more difficult matches in the competition. The match was a one side game except the third set when Nkumba played their best and led many times before Ahly coach returned back some standing players to win the match in straight sets. “I tried all the players to give them the chance because it was an easy match. Today Esthter Dusu, Miral Raouf and Sherihan Sameh were the best plyers in My team.” Ahly coach Raouf Abdel Kader said. Al Shams vs. Mouloudia Mouloudia rebounded from 2 sets behind to win their Marathon against Al Shams 3-2 (21-25, 21-25, 25-10, 25-19, 15-11) in 110 minutes of thriller action. After Shams won 2 successive sets due to the stable block, Mouloudia turned the match from upside downwards due to the successful combinations led by the match star Fatima Okazi the setter and the efficient center Nassima Benhamouda who was the match scorer with 27 points. Mouloudia head coach Ahmed Boukacem changed the strategy of his team after losing 2 sets and said cheerfully: “My players have no enough experience of such competitions but when we changed our strategy to the fast attacks through the centre players. I think we want some time to get the experience through this competition.” Shams head coach Hesham Badrawy took over the responsibility only two weeks before the competition but he was not happy with the acute decline of the performance after the first and second sets. “The players started their training only 2 weeks before and this is not enough to traoin for such a big competition, but we hope to recover and to win the next matches in the pool to qualify to the semifinal.” Said Badrawy. Mouloudia started the match using their strong attackers Amel Khamtache and Yasmine Oudni and thus they led 8-4 at the FTT. Quickly Shams players arranged their block led by Ingy El Shami to turn over and to lead 16-15 before winning the first set 25-21 after a group of efficient spikes from Dina Assal and Samar Ebeid. The second set showed the same performance from Shams players as they dominated the net action through Menna Ahmed and Ingy to win 25-21. The match went to another route when the experienced Algeria National team setter Fatima Okazi succeeded to start her skillful setting to the centers Nassima Benhamouda and Dalel Draa to deceive Al Shams block and to have big point deficit till 20-8. Again Fatima made many deceiving places in Shams court to allow her team to win the set widely 25-10. The highly motivated Mouloudia players continued the same rhythm in the fourth set and again Fatima led the fast attacks through position 3 to widely lead 11-2. After time out Shams head coach Hecham Badrawy arranged the block of Ingy and Menna relatively to come near 13-9. Mouloudia players were more consistent to win the set and continued their potent spikes from all net positions to achieve the set 25-19 and to bring the match to draw 2-2 in sets and extends the game to tiebreak. Mouloudia continued their superior performance and played with the spirit of victory and thus they reached to 8-1 at the court turn. Shams players took the matter seriously for a while to decrease the point deficit to 12-8 for Mouloudia. Again due to mistakes of Shams players Mouloudia continued to win the set 15- and the long Marathon 3-2. VC Canon vs. KC Bank The former African champions KC Bank of Kenya started their way in this competition successfully after they took over VC Canon of RD Congo in straight sets 25-21, 25-16, 25-16 in 60 minutes. The Kenya coach Paul Bitok was happy to start his way in the competition with a victory that made them ready to compete for the trophy. “We have to win each match to secure the top of our strong pool before the more important clashes in the semifinal,” Said Bitok. “We used to play with poor performance at the beginning of the competitions but we hope to reach to our top performance when we face the strong teams Shams and Mouloudia because also we played only one match in the local league and we have to try all our players.” He added. VC Conon started the match more aggressive and succeeded to be the dominant side through their solid block of Muanandi Bashaie and Inoku Bofeyi and thus they led 8-6 and stayed ahead using the bad reception of the Kenyan team to continue leading 16-12. With the experience of the superstar Dorcas Ndasaba, KC Bank came on time when VC canon led 21-19 to score 6 successive points that allowed them to win the set 25-21. In the second set KC Bank setter Esther Ouna played a great role with her combinations using the centers and the spikers so they won both the second and third sets in the same result 21-16.