Al Ahli miss out on West Asian volleyball bronze

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s Al Ahli Club missed out on a medal finish in the second West Asian Men‘s Clubs Volleyball Championship, which came to a close last night in Muscat.

The Kingdom’s representatives valiantly battled back from two sets down to force a decisive tie-break, but could not ride their momentum to a victory as they fell in a thrilling five-setter to Al Arabi of Qatar in the game for third place.

Ahli did masterfully to stay alive and avoid a sweep and then in the fifth frame, went behind 4-8 but gradually reduced the deficit to just two, 9-11.

That was as close as they would get, however, as Arabi made their decisive rally in the end and Ahli could not recover to finish with a 2-3 (18-25, 16-25, 25-23, 25-21, 11-15) final score line.

The Bahrainis completed their tournament win having won three of their preliminary round games, then winning their quarter-final before losing in the last four as well as in the bronze medal match.

Ahli were spearheaded in the competition by the trio of national team star pairing Ali Ebrahim and Nasser Anan, along with Montenegro professional Marko Vukasinovic.

They also got contributions from top talents Sayed Mohammed Al Abrar, Mahmoud Abdulhussain, Mohammed Habib, Hussain Al Haiki, and Mahmood Al Afia, among others.

Al Afia was loaned from Muharraq Club for the championship, while they were missing a big piece in injured star Mohammed Anan.