Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, June 20, 2015 - Czech Republic fell in four sets 1-3 (17-25, 25-23, 22-25, 14-25) to France on Saturday afternoon in Ceske Budejovice despite great performance from Jan Stokr who finished with 21 points scored.
France had an impressive start to the match, going up 10-6 in the opening frame. Despite a timeout called by Czech Republic coach Zdenek Smejkal, the French lead would grow to as high as six points at 14-8. The home team was not able to put any resistance and lost the set 25-17.
The second set started with some great performance of Jan Stokr being unstoppable on spiking and adding one point from an ace to put Czech Republich 8-6 in front. The momentum continued as the home team pushed up the advantage to 20-16 to eventually close out the set 25-23 on a kill from Stokr.
The beginning of the third set was under control of the home team but France took one point advantage into the first technical timeout on great serve from Franck Lafitte. Czech Republic, however, regained soon a narrow advantage to maintain it until the late stage of the set. France was 22-21 down but then scored four consecutive points to finish it off 25-22. They carried their momentum into the fourth set and quickly established a comfortable 10-4 advantage. The home team frustrated by some serving aces was not able to fight back and easily gifted France the set 25-14.
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