Maritza breaks own record with 10th national title in a row

Maritza Plovdiv earned its 10th back-to-back national volleyball crown, breaking its own record for consecutive titles in the Bulgarian league. The Yellow-and-Blues from Europe’s oldest living city cruised through the best-of-five National Volleyball League championship series against CSKA Sofia with three straight-set victories in a row to lift yet another trophy, celebrate yet another golden double and qualify for yet another CEV Champions League appearance.

Maritza went through the entire NVL season undefeated, dropping only two sets in 21 matches played – 14 in the regular season, two in the quarterfinals against DKS Varna, two in the semifinals against Slaviya Sofia and three in the finals against CSKA. In last week’s first two games of the championship playoff, both played at the Sila hall in Plovdiv, the defending titleholders mastered a 3-0 (25-19, 26-24, 26-24) and a 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-15) sweeps on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, to get to within a win from the gold medals. Sunday’s third match was played in Sofia, at the Hristo Botev hall, but that did not make any difference. Maritza dominated again and hammered out a 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-15) shutout of the home team.

“I want to thank everyone for the support and, most of all, for the patience. No doubt, we are quite a young team and we are learning on the go, but the patience pays off with results,” Maritza’s head coach Borislav Krachanov commented after the last match. “I hope our domination continues for as long as possible. We are writing history, so let’s write as much as possible to make it more difficult for other clubs later on to break our records.”

“We wanted to give our all, to provide this emotion for ourselves and for the audience, and win in straight sets,” said Maritza’s setter Lora Slavcheva. “Teamwork helped us in the difficult moments, the moments when one of us gives a hand to the other one with the words, ‘get up, it will be alright’, and that’s how we cope with the situation. That’s why we are a team.”

National Volleyball League 2023-2024 – all results