For­mer na­tion­al women's vol­ley­baller Sinead Jack-Kisal was one of three play­ers in dou­ble-fig­ure scor­ing as Eczacibasi Dy­nav­it Is­tan­bul bat­tled past De­vel­o­pres Rzes­zow in five sets (3-2) in their 2022/2023 Women’s Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­ons League Vol­ley­ball quar­ter­fi­nal sec­ond-leg to book a spot in the fi­nal four on Thurs­day.

Play­ing in front their home crowd at the TVF Burhen Fe­lix Sports Hall in Is­tan­bul, Turkey, Eczacibasi on­ly had to win two sets to book a spot in the semi­fi­nals, as they won the first du­el 3-1 (25-19, 22-25, 25-16, 28-16) at Ha­la Pod­promie, Rzes­zow, in Poland last week and in the end twice came from a set down to 20-25, 25-19, 24-26, 25-21, 15-8.

For the host, Ser­bian cap­tain Ti­jana Boskovic led all scor­ers with 30 points while Iri­na Voronko­va added 16, Jack-Kisal 14, and the pair of Hande Bal­adin and Yasemin Gu­veli, sev­en points each in the five-set thriller while Gabriel Or­voso­va led De­vel­o­pres Rzes­zow with 21 points, with good sup­port from Ann Ka­lan­dadze who got 17, Mag­dale­na Ju­r­czyk with 12, and Weroni­ka Szlagows­ka with 11.

With the win, 16-time Turk­ish cham­pi­ons Eczacibasi Dy­nav­it, set up a semi­fi­nal with Ital­ians Ig­or Gor­gonzo­la No­vara af­ter the lat­ter won 25-18, 25-19, 25-21 in their sec­ond-leg over against Ger­many’s Al­lianz MTV Stuttgart on Wednes­day to fol­low up on their first-leg 21-25, 25-16, 25-21, 25-23 tri­umph.

It is al­so the sixth time in the club's his­to­ry that Eczacibasi Dy­nav­it has reached the Cham­pi­ons League semi­fi­nals/fi­nal four, hav­ing won the ti­tle in 2015, while they were third in 2017, and fin­ished fourth in 2001, 2002, 2009, and 2014.

Eczacibasi Dy­nav­it ad­vanced di­rect­ly to the quar­ter­fi­nals af­ter they topped their four-team round-robin Pool E se­ries with a per­fect 6-0 record and a max­i­mum of 18 points, eight ahead of Poland’s Gru­pa Azo­ty Chemik Po­lice, while De­vel­o­pres Rzes­zow was sec­ond in Pool A with a 4-2 record, to fin­ish be­hind A. Car­raro Imo­co Conegliano (6-0) be­fore beat­ing France’s Volero Le Can­net in a ‘Gold­en Set’ in their play­off.

In the oth­er half of the draw, fel­low Turk­ish club Vak­if­bank, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons beat Italy’s Vero Vol­ley Mi­lano 25-18, 25-19, 25-17 and 18-25, 25-22, 22-25, 25-21, 15-11 and will face fel­low Turk­ish club Fener­bache Opet who over­came reign­ing world club cham­pi­ons and fi­nal­ist for the past three sea­sons, Ital­ians Imo­co Conegliano, 25-19, 25-17, 25-19 in the first-leg, and then went un­der, 25-23, 25-15, 23-25, 20-25, 13-15, in the sec­ond-leg.

How­ev­er, Fener­bache on­ly need­ed to win two sets in the sec­ond leg af­ter sweep­ing the first, to se­cure their spot in the fi­nal four.

Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, the 28-year-old Jack-Kisal who has now ac­quired Turk­ish cit­i­zen­ship and her club are un­beat­en at the top of the Turk­ish Women’s Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onship (Mis­li.com Sul­tan­lar Li­gi) with a 20-0 win-loss record and 59 points, nine clear of Vak­if­bank (17-3) ahead of their next match ver­sus Ay­dein Sun­day.

Third on the stand­ings is Fener­bache OPET with a 16-4 record and 48 points fol­lowed by Turk Ha­va Yal­lori (14-5) with 42, and Galatasaray (13-7) with 39 to round out the top five clubs on the 14-club ta­ble.

They are fol­lowed by Nilufer (10-10) with 31 points, Ay­din (9-11) with 29, and Kuzey­boru (9-11) with 27 in the eighth and fi­nal play­off qual­i­fi­ca­tion spot, while Cukuro­va (9-10) with 26, Sar­riy­er (9-11) with 23, and PTT (7-13) with 20 points are all still in con­tention as well to ex­tend their sea­son. The trio of Sig­or­ta (4-16) with 15, Bolu (2-18) with eight, and win­less Il­bank at 0-20 and with­out a point oc­cu­py­ing the bot­tom three spots.