PARIS 2024: Malkia Strikers fall short again as Poland claims straight-set victory

Malkia Strikers' return to the South Paris Arena 6 on Wednesday evening culminated in yet another loss at the 2024 Paris Olympics Games as they succumbed to a 3-0 (25:14, 25:17, and 25:15) defeat against Poland in their second Group B game.

Malkia Strikers exhibited the same struggles that highlighted their 3-0 loss to Brazil in their first group match in Paris on Monday afternoon. Kenya lost needless points to poor service and reception and failure to consistently mount robust blocks as well as penetrate the opponents' blocks.

Similar to the match against Brazil, Kenya had a promising start to each set, matching their opppnents point for point and clawing their back to the game with encouraging alacrity.

However, such defiance was always short-lived and in each set, after the brutal exchanges of the opening phases, anxiety kicked in and Malkia Strikers' pulled away to unassailable lead.

The first set had Malkia Strikers lead 3-1 but failure to build on that advantage allowed Poland, who like, Kenya, are also appearing in their fourth Olympic Games, to catch up and open up a two-point lead and later a five-point which forced Kenya's coach Japheth Munala to call a time-out with the score at 11-6.

That time-out call took too long to bring the desired as Poland, bronze medalists in the sport in 1964 and 1968, came back even more ferocious, extending their lead by eight points and later double digits on their way to claiming the first set 25-14.

The second set was without doubt Kenya's best performance in the tournament so far as they managed to score more points than in their previous four sets.

It was a performance that matched their determination from early im the set when they clawed back from 2-0 down to draw level with the Poles before seeing their opponents pull away.

However, Malkia Strikers doggedly made effort to reduce the margin and on one occasion scored three straight points without reply from the Europeans, a sequence of encouraging play that got the crowd behind them.

It was an effort that brought the score to 17-12 but the Poles managed to stifle that fightback by adding eight points to Kenya's five to win the set 25:17.

From that encouraging second set, Kenya had a nightmare start to the third set, trailing 5-0 and then 7-1 before they scored four points in a row to reduce the deficit to a respectable 7-5.

After that the two teams went on a series of exchanging points at almost regular frequency with Kenya trying as much as possible to keep the gap between them and Poland as narrow as possible.

Still, Poland managed to pull away, however much Kenya clawed back to reduce the deficit. The Europeans put an end to Kenya's defiance when they reached 25 points while Kenya had stagnated at points 15.

In the end, it was an unsurprising conclusion with Poland proving their pedigree as an emerging force in women's volleyball. Their victory over Kenya follows up on their 3-1 win against Japan in their first match at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Japan came into the tournament having won silver in the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Women's Nations League, a competition in which Poland went home with the bronze medal after beating Brazil.

Kenya's next match will be on August 3 against Japan