Calm Kenya ease past Ethiopia

If there was a team that was to stand between Kenya and qualifying for the 2015 All Africa Games final that team was Ethiopia.

Though Kenya won 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-9), the African volleyball queens worked for the win yesterday in Kampala.  Ethiopians were looked at as minors by many, including Kenya, but the former proved early enough that they would be a hard nut to crack especially with their net defense.

They led 16-14 by the second technical timeout as the Kenyan’s fumbled on attack with Janet Wanja struggling to rhyme with her attackers Mercy Moim and Ruth Jepngetich.

But excitement took its toll on Ethiopia as they got themselves into making unforced errors on the net to give away free points.

Kenya held their nerve as Wanja did away with the fancy sets and decided to play basic and her attackers responded.

It was 22-19 when Evelyn Makuto and Jepngetich joined forces on the net to make it 23-19 and later it was Moim witha block of her own to lead 24-19).  Ethiopia’s Teklehaimont Yeshidagne netted and Wanja served for the set point for Kenya to take the set 25-19.

Moim, Esther Wangeci and Jepngetich made good use of their back court attacks as Biana also started whipping Ethiopia’s block to make their points.

But still the unforced errors from Ethiopia earned Kenya points on a silver platter as they stretched their lead to 25-17. They breezed through the third 25-9.

Kenya needs to win just one of their remaining two matches against Burundi and Uganda to qualify for the finals.

Against Egypt, Kenya showed signs of maturity especially in tense moments when the former had them against the wall.

 Setter and skipper Wanja had her shortcoming especially on net defense, as her short block was utilized by the Egyptian attacker Shams Aya.

 But the Kenya Pipeline setter complemented that with on-point attacking designs.

 “Our plan was to better our reception, once we sorted that, the rest of the work was easy,” Lung’aho said.