New Diamond was defeated 25-15, 25-19, 25-19 at Nepalgunj Stadium. With the win, APF set a final clash against Railway Kolkata for Saturday.New Diamond, which defeated Uttar Pradesh of India in its last match, failed to repeat a similar performance against APF. New Diamond coach Kumar Rai pointed out the lack of suitable pair for spiker Prathiba Mali as the reason for defeat. "Prathiba is the biggest strength of our team, but she failed to perform well today since there wasn't any suitable pair for her," Rai said. "We even failed to play 20 percent of our potential and our block was also miserable."
"We have been losing to APF in almost every tournament we play. We need to focus on producing a reliable spiker to pair with Prathiba in the coming days," Rai said.
His counterpart Bijay KC of APF said that his team was able to diffuse attacks from Prathiba and achieved the comfortable win.
In another semifinal, Railway India overcame Kurukshetra University of Uttar Pradesh in straight sets of 28-26, 25-19, 25-8 to fix the second meeting with APF in the tournament. Railway had defeated APF 25-21, 18-25, 25-23, 22-25, 15-10 in the opening match of the group stage.
Meanwhile, New Diamond will take on Kurukshetra University for the third place honors on Saturday.
Related story
New Diamond lifts APF volleyball trophy
-1779250876.webp)
