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Friday, April 29, 2016

Star leaves GVK - moves home after one season

She scooped up points for Gislaved in both the Elite League and the Öresundliga.
Now Hanna Salomäki has decided to move back to Finland.
- "We'll miss you," writes the club on Instagram.

 290 points for the Finnish outside hitter - who now looks to pursue her playing career in the Finnish Mestaruusliiga with LP Kangasala. In March, Salomäki was selected to the Finnish women's national training squad. She is one of 26-players that will look to join the final 12-player roster slated to compete mid-September in the European Championships.

"Thank you for a brilliant season. Good luck, we'll miss you," GVK writes in a post on social media.


Hanna Salomäki left Gislaved as a few weeks ago after the team lost in the SM-quarterfinals against Svedala.


Thursday, April 7, 2016

GVK-board thoughts on Magnusson

Daniel Magnusson's contract with Gislaved expires this summer.
Now, the two parties shall meet.

Player-budget does not increase without more sponsors.

GVK's season was recently brought to an end after falling 0-3 in matches against Svedala quarterfinal series. 

Now Gislaved VK's prepares for the autumn.

"The club's existence must not be jeopardized," says the president Patrik Paananen.

With the Dutch outside hitter Ester de Vries and Finnish spiker Hanna Salomäki, GVK, at times, dazzled.

But when De Vries suddenly encountered a mysterious shoulder injury, Salomäki, along with libero Jessica Lakatos, fell ill with fever, the team had not much to offer.

Now the club has started the process for the next Elite League season.

"The girls should know they did very well and showed great strength throughout the season. The fact is that our squad was among the youngest and perhaps among the most inexperienced," says Patrik Paananen.

"It is sad that injuries and illness to key players halted our potential. It would have been very interesting to know how far we could go if both Ester and Hanna were healthy," he adds.

The contract with coach Daniel Magnusson expires in the summer and the parties shall begin their meetings.

Do you want to keep him as a coach?
"Yes, we want to keep Daniel. He does not only great benefit of developing elite-team players, but Daniel develops the entire association with his knowledge. He is important for GVK."

Will De Vries and Salomäki stay for a second season?
"I do not know the current situation, but the hope is that they want to remain in Gislaved. But I will come back with more comments about all the players later. We will meet them and discuss the future," says the GVK-chairman.

Will you increase the player budget?
"Depends on how many more sponsors we get. We will, in any case, not risk the club's existence in order to afford the more expensive players," concludes Patrik Paananen.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

New loses for Ekblad

Ebba Ekblad played with the Swedish national team at the u19 European Championship qualification in Croatia.
And after three losses, the team is out.

On Thursday, they met the host nation Croatia, and fell 0-3 (15-25, 16-25, 17-25).

On Saturday it was time for the second match, this time against Turkey. Unfortunately, there was a similar situation there. The Turkish squad took the match in straight sets (13-25, 11-25, 14-25).

On Sunday it was time for the the last match of the group stage, Sweden vs Spain. There, things were considerably smoother. 

Spain won the opening set 25-20 and the second 25-11, but with the Swedes came back with revenge, winning the third set 23-25. However, the Spaniards were able to turn the tide back in the fourth set, winning it 25-17 and the match 3-1 in sets.

- In [Sunday's] game, there were some players who stood out. Setter Kajsa Österman came in during the game and showed courage to play the most unexpected ways out and fooled Turkey's middles several times to go in the wrong direction. Outside hitter Ebba Ekblad came in and attacked high and hard against Turkey's large blocks and won several balls in the third," says coach Oscar Vikterlöf.

EKBLAD BY THE NUMBERS

vs Croatia: sets played (2), kills (1)

vs Turkey: sets played (3), kills (3)

Vs Spain: sets played (4), kills (3)