Malkia Strikers face Poland in do-or-die Olympics match

By Peter Ochieng

The Kenya women's volleyball team, Malkia Strikers players have a massive Olympics game on their hands today.

Coach Japheth Munala's charges will face Poland - the third best ranked side in the world after Italy and Brazil, in the second match of group B.

The African Queens need a win against Poland so has to renew hopes of making it out of the difficult group, after being thrashed 3-0 by Brazil, on Monday.

The Kenya vs Poland match will kick off at 10.00pm East African time, before Malkia Strikers face Japan - the 7th ranked side on Friday in the last group match.

Malkia Strikers outside hitter Leonida Kasaya who is making her second Olympics appearance after the 2020 edition, is urging her young teammates to up their game in the remaining pool B matches.

“We just need courage. Each member of the young team members need to push harder," she pointed out.

On her performance against Brazil, she said:

“My performance was average, not that bad, but I need to put in more effort as a senior player, because junior players will be looking up to me, so I am compelled to perform well. I’m not at my very best though, compared to Tokyo where I was in fine form."

"Upon return from maternity leave, I have not reverted to my level of play, but with time I will be back in the groove and regain my usual form."

“In my opinion, we really tried because we played against one of the top teams in the world. Technically, just a little slip-up on the kills; I believe we did well on reception. With courage and some a calculated attack effort, everything will be okay. We just need to upscale our reception to 80 percent," added the 30-year-old player.

She took positive lessons from the Brazil match.

“Against Brazil, we were scoring which is a good sign, previously we could only manage single-digit scores when we played them, now at least we try and reach 10-plus, Kasaya, as quoted by Capital Sports.

Despite the defeat against the South American champions, coach Munala said his players showed an improved performance.

“Our performance wasn’t that bad. In the first and second set, we gave our all, we attacked, but sadly we could not win a set, but we lost it completely in the third, I think after the first two sets the girls gave up and at some point, thought they would never recover the two-set deficit.”

Brazil and Poland lead group B, after beating Kenya and Japan respectively in opening group games.