Bulgaria: Maritza and Neftohimik conquer this year’s edition of National Cup

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20 March 2021 Ivan

For the first time in the history of Bulgarian volleyball, the national cup (Kupa Bulgaria) finals for women and men were played on the same day and in the same city, Pazardzhik.

Neftohimik 2010 Burgas triumphed in the men’s competition. The team commanded by Nikolay Zhelyazkov prevailed over Dobrudzha 07 Dobrich after an exhausting duel: 3-2 (25:21, 23:25, 25:21, 23:25, 15:11). Thus, Neftohimik won the Bulgarian Cup for the 5th time, the first time in 3 years (2007, 2008, 2016, 2018, 2021).
Nikolay Nikolov was the top scorer on the winning side with 15 points, including 5 blocks, which was quite enough to take the award of MVP, while Teodor Salparov was very good in reception (84%, 19 digs, 26% excellent). Zhulien Georgiev was the top scorer for Dobrudzha with 27 points, while Ventsislav Ragin set up as many as 7 blocks.

Maritza Plovdiv won the women’s competition for the 4th time in a row and for the 6th time in total (2012, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021). The girls coached by Lazar Lazarov swept CSKA Sofia with 3-0 (25:11, 25:13, 25:15). Miroslava Paskova top-scored Maritza with 21 points and earned MVP award, while Aleksandra Milanova made 73% reception (15 digs). Aleksandra Kostadinova scored 10 points on the losing side.