Austria: Ried defeats Sokol and is close to win the intermediate round. Hartberg defeats Weiz at tie break.

UVC Weberzeile Ried is close to win the DenizBank AG VL intermediate round, as they prevailed against TJ Sokol Vienna V in four sets (25:23, 25:20, 26:28, 25:19) on Wednesday evening. Now they are five points ahead of the rivals, who only have two games to play.
Felix Breit got a very important block on 24:23 in first set, while the second was very balanced until 15:15, and then Ried fly to 19:15, thanks to a good performance especially from the service line. Also the third and decisive was very balanced and ended 28:26. Top scorers for the winners were Tomek Rutecki (22) and George Hobern (10), and Clemens Ecker (19) and Christian Käfer (11) for Sokol.

On the other match of the day, TSV Raiffeisen Hartberg celebrated the second victory of the season. The newcomers and last-placed of the league wins the Styrian derby against fourth-placed VBC TLC Weiz after a tough battle lasted five sets (25:20, 25:22, 24:26, 21:25, 15:11).
Just like last Saturday in Klagenfurt, Hartberg had away a 2-0 set lead against Weiz, but this time not won the match as well: head coach Markus Hirczy’s team kept concentration in the tie-break and were able to celebrate their second success of the season after 110 minutes of play. Maximilian Schedl (21) and Maximilian Bruchmann (12) were Hartberg’s top scorer, while for Weiz Michael Pekar had an amazing performance with 34 points.

Formula: the first four teams after the end of the intermediate round will face the four top round teams SK Zadruga Aich/Dob, UVC Holding Graz, Union Raiffeisen Waldviertel and VCA Amstetten NÖ in the quarter finals. The intermediate round ends on February 13th, the top round on February 18th.
The quarter-final pairings result from the two final standings: 1st TR vs. 4th IR, 2nd TR vs. 3rd IR, 3rd TR vs. 2nd IR, 4th TR vs. 1st IR.

| Top Round

January 21 | VCA Amstetten NÖ – Union Raiffeisen Waldviertel 1-3 (25:16, 16:25, 15:25, 12:25)
January 26 | Union Raiffeisen Waldviertel – SK Zadruga Aich/Dob
January 28 | UVC Holding Graz – VCA Amstetten NÖ

📌| Standings Top Round (updated on January 26)
UVC Graz 6
Aich/Dob 3
Waldviertel 3
Amstetten 0

| Zwischenrunde | Intermediate Round

January 23 |
• VBC TLC Weiz – TJ Sokol Wien V 3-2 (19:25, 16:25, 25:23, 25:20, 16:14)
📸| PHOTOGALLERY OF THE MATCH
• VBK Wörther-See-Löwen Klagenfurt – TSV Raiffeisen Hartberg 3-2 (24:26, 22:25, 25:20, 25:18, 15:12)

January 27 |
• SG UVC Weberzeile Ried/Innkreis – TJ Sokol Wien V 3-1 (25:23, 25:20, 26:28, 25:19)
• TSV Raiffeisen Hartberg – VBC TLC Weiz 3-2 (25:20, 25:22, 24:26, 21:25, 15:11)

📄| Standings Zwischenrunde (updated on January 27, 2021)
Ried 32
Sokol 27
Klagenfurt 23
Weiz 21
Hartberg 7