Chinese Army finishes top in China club volleyball tournament preliminaries

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Army swept Liaoning 3-0 in the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) Gymnasium on Friday to finish top in the women's preliminaries of the Good Luck Beijing 2008 China Club Volleyball Tournament.

Wang Chen scored 12 points and Fan Linlin, Bai Yun and Liu Congcong added 10 each to lift Bayi over Liaoning 25-16, 25-20 and25-18.

Later on Friday, Tianjin beat Jiangsu 25-15, 17-25, 25-18 and 26-24 for its second straight victory following an opening loss to Bayi on Wednesday.

The Chinese Army, Tianjin and Jiangsu all finished with two wins and one loss in the round-robin preliminaries while the Chinese Army ranked first with better points ratio.

In Saturday's semifinals, the Chinese Army plays Liaoning, who dropped three in a row in the preliminaries, while Tianjin takes on Jiangsu.

"We played better and better in the last three matches, I think the young players have learned a lot and improved very quickly," said Tianjin head coach Wang Baoquan. "We will try our best in the rest of the tournament."

Tianjin, who was playing without some of its regular starters including Athens Olympics gold medallists Li Shan and Zhang Ping due to injuries, was led by Yin Na's 18 points.

"Yin did a great job today, she played very well both in offense and defense," Wang said.

Yin converted on 15 of her 36 spiking opportunities and contributed three blocks for Tianjin.