The third match of the Polish Przyga Playoffs third place deciding match between Warsaw and Jastrziebuski Wenger was held on Wednesday, May 7th local time, and Warsaw won a fierce battle 3-2 (21-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-23, 15-12) to secure third place in the league.
After the third place ceremony, we spoke with Jakub Kochanowski, a middle blocker for Warsaw and the Polish national team.
T: Congratulations on your third place. How do you feel now?
Kochanowski: I'm very tired but very satisfied. It's not perfect though, because this season our dreams were a little bigger. But a medal is a medal and we qualified for the Champions League, which means a lot for next season. So I'm happy now.
T: Today's game was really close.
Kochanowski: To be honest, there were moments in the fifth set when I didn't believe we could win. But today's win is entirely down to Rinus Weber. His serve carried us to victory. When you're down five points in the fifth set and then you lose, it's very difficult to recover mentally. But thanks to him we had another chance to win the match.
T: You mentioned that your goals for this season were much higher, but how do you feel looking back on this season as a whole?
Kochanovski: Our aim in every competition was to play until the last game (final). But that didn't happen. The quarter-final of the Champions League was a very disappointing loss. Personally, I think we had the ability to reach the final four, but in Ankara, the opponents were better. I think that was the first big hurdle of the season.
Then in the semi-finals of the Polish Cup, they were completely dominated by Zawiercze, never finding a breakthrough, and then in the semi-finals of the Przőliga they faced the same opponent, losing both matches in five sets, both times failing to win despite leading in the fifth set.
So obviously there have been a lot of disappointments this season, but I think we still played good volleyball in the third-place match and proved that we are a good team, because of course we had some difficult moments and we made some mistakes, but we still managed to beat a strong team like Jastrzębski Vągyel.
We were a good team but we had some bad moments and unfortunately it happened in a really important game.
T: This marks the end of the club season and the start of the national team season.
Kochawski: Yes, the international season is also very tough but very important. Luckily I have a little bit of time off, so I'll have time to recover from any small injuries I may have. Every international season is a whole different story, so I'm looking forward to joining the team and playing for Poland.
T: But unfortunately, it looks like there will be no matches in Japan this year.
Kochanowski: Yes, I can't go to Japan this year. But I visit Japan almost every year, so I'll hold off this year (laughs). But I'll go to the World Championships in the Philippines, which is nearby, and I'm sure there will be Japanese fans there, because they'll basically be flying all over the world. So I'm sure we'll meet again somewhere.
Photo: TOSHIKI, PGE Project Warszawa
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