NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

For­mer T&T mid­dle-block­er Sinead Jack-Kisal scored a club-ca­reer high 22 points as her Ecza­cıbaşı Dy­nav­it play­ing in spe­cial pur­ple jer­seys sym­bol­is­ing women’s em­pow­er­ment (In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day) claimed a 3-1 vic­to­ry (25-13, 25-27, 25-15, 25-19) against Kuzey­boru in the Turk­ish Voda­fone Sul­tan Women’s Vol­ley­ball League on Sat­ur­day.

Play­ing at the İs­tan­bul Büyükşe­hir Belediye­si Ce­be­ci Spor Kom­plek­si, Jack reg­is­tered 13 kills and six blocks in her tal­ly while Dana Lynn Ret­tke added 13, Hande Bal­adin and Yaprak Erkek eight each, and the trio of Alexa Gray, An­na Nico­let­ti and Kathryn Bo­den, sev­en each in the win, their 21st from 24 match­es for 62 points, four be­hind lead­ers Fener­bahce Med­icana, who has an iden­ti­cal 21-3 record but a su­pe­ri­or sets won to sets lost ra­tio of 69-13 to 64-20.

Third on the ta­ble is Jack-Kisal’s for­mer club, Vak­if­bank, with a 20-4 record and 59 points, while Galatasaray Daikin (18-6) and 56 points, is fourth fol­lowed by Turk Ha­va Yol­lari (16-8), Zeren Spor (15-9) and Kuzey­boru (14-10) with 47, 39, and 42 points re­spec­tive­ly while Bahceliev­er is eighth with a 9-15 record and 26 points.

Yes­ter­day, Jack-Kisal and her club­mates were dumped from the Eu­ro­pean Women’s Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­ons League af­ter a sec­ond-leg quar­ter­fi­nal loss to Ital­ians Nu­mia Vero Vol­ley Mi­lano.

This af­ter, Nu­mia Vero Vol­ley Mi­lano won the first-leg en­counter 25-18, 25-23, 25-14 at the Al­lianz Cloud in Mi­lan last Tues­day and al­so won in Turkey 26-26, 26-24, 25-21 with the win­ners to face A Car­raro Imo­co Conegliano al­so of Italy who cruised past Poland’s De­vel­o­pres Rzes­zow 25-22, 25-17, 29-27 and 25-18, 25-19, 25-22 in their quar­ter­fi­nal se­ries.

Dur­ing the group stages of the tour­na­ment, Jack-Kisal and her club topped Group B of the Eu­ro­pean Women’s Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­ons League when they fin­ished with a per­fect 6-0 record and a max­i­mum of 18 points, eight clear of Tent Obren­o­vac, who end­ed with a 3-3 mark and ten points, while Ger­many’s Schw­er­iner was next at 3-3 with eight points as well.

As Group B win­ners, Dy­nav­it earned an au­to­mat­ic spot in the quar­ter­fi­nals with the four oth­er pool win­ners, while Nu­mia Vero Vol­ley Mi­lano swept Schw­er­iner in their home and away in their round-of-16 se­ries 25-14, 25-23, 25-16, and 25-18, 25-21, 26-24.

In the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nals, Italy’s Savi­no Del Bene Scan­dic­ci swept Poland’s PGE Grot Bu­dowlani Lodz 3-0 (25-22, 25-22, 25-21 and 25-17, 25-17, 25-16) while Fener­bahce beat fel­low Turk­ish club Vak­if­bank 25-21, 25-23, 29-27 but went un­der 25-19, 23-25, 20-25, 24-26 in the re­turn-leg be­fore the lat­ter won the ‘Gold­en St’ 15-11.