THE Zimbabwe men’s volleyball team failed to progress to the Africa World Cup Championship qualifiers after losing 3-1 to Botswana in the Zone V1 World Championships qualifiers in Botswana on Saturday.
SUKOLUHLE MTHETHWA
The men’s team had started on a good note coming from behind to beat Lesotho 3-2 on Tuesday before getting the better of Namibia 3-0. On Thursday, they lost 0-3 to Zambia, beat Mozambique 3-1 on Friday before losing to the hosts on Saturday.
Zimbabwe Volleyball Association secretary-general Ringisai Mapondera yesterday told our Bulawayo Bureau that the team is now out of the competition.
“Botswana were on top with 14 points. We were tied on eight points with Lesotho and Zambia. We lost out to Zambia because of set quotient. We needed to win two sets but we won one when we played Botswana,” he said.
Zimbabwe won the first set 25-21 before losing 25-21, 25-14 and 25-19 in the last set against Botswana.
The result saw Botswana and Zambia qualify for the next stage which is the Africa World Championship Qualifiers to be held in Egypt next month as teams battle to go to the finals to be held in Poland next year.
Mapondera blamed the defeat on poor preparations.
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“The team only had a day to train. We do not have resources to send our teams for longer periods in camp. We also failed to bring one player Murraypole Ndlovu because we could not raise his airfares. If you look at countries like Botswana they get assistance from the government. They can even go to countries like Cuba just to train there, but for us it is difficult,” he said.
Meanwhile, the women’s team is expected to go into camp in Harare on Wednesday for the Zone V1 world championships qualifiers which begin in Zambia on Sunday.
