PVL: Calicut Heroes continue dominance, beat Hyderabad Black Hawks

With M Ashwin Raj and Jerome Vinith leading the scoring charts, the Calicut Heroes beat the Hyderabad Black Hawks 15-14, 15-12, 15-11, 4-15, 15-14. Ashwin was named the Player of the Match.

With the threat of Jerome Vinith and Jose Antonio Sandoval looming, Hyderabad began cautiously, focusing on avoiding block errors. Setter Lal Sujan kept providing the ball to skipper Guru Prashanth as Hyderabad built pressure on Calicut's blockers.

The more Hyderabad attacked the middle, the more Calicut skipper Matt Hilling faltered with serve reception. But the tide turned when Calicut switched the game towards the sidelines, and suddenly the Hawks had no answers to Hilling's blocks and Vinith spikes.

Hyderabad's struggles with blocks continued on the night. To make matters worse, spike errors from Hemanth and John further proved costly for Hyderabad.

Sandoval became more dominant in the middle, as he started scoring block points and setting up Vinith and Ashwin for spikes. With accurate counter-attacking shots, Ashwin kept up the pressure on the Black Hawks. Hilling strategised well to keep Lal Sujan away from the ball, so he could not provide for Guru.

Trent found a footing late in the game as he matched Sandoval block-for-block. But it was too late for Hyderabad, and Calicut won the contest 4-1 win to climb to the top of the table.

Mumbai Meteors will be up against Bengaluru Torpedoes, while Kolkata Thunderbolts will be up against Kochi Blue Spikers at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium on the final match day of the Bengaluru leg of the Prime Volleyball League from 1900 hrs IST on Sunday. (ANI)