Piacenza grants encore and flies to CEV Cup final

Gas Sales Bluenergy Volley Piacenza won a pass to the final act of the CEV Cup by imposing 3-1 on ACH Volley Ljubljana at the end of an hour and a half of play in a sold-out Sporta Dvorana Tivoli for days. In the final it will face SVG Luneburg, a German outfit capable of eliminating Belgium’s Greenyard Maaseik in the semifinals. The first leg will be played in Germany on Wednesday, April 15, while the return match is scheduled a week later at the PalabancaSport.

In front of more than three thousand spectators (including about thirty Red and White fans and president Elisabetta Curti), Andrea Boninfante’s team dominates the first two sets with authority, suffers the Slovenian reaction in the third partial, but finds lucidity and incisiveness again in the fourth, closing the match in the advantages and detaching the ticket for the Final among the enthusiasm of its supporters. MVP of the match Alessandro Bovolenta, author of 18 points, while the hosts were not enough with 21 points scored by Toncek Stern.

Cucine Lube Civitanova instead attempted a feat in Poland, but the hosts of Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie won the Final Four of the CEV Champions League. At the Sosnowiec Arena, in front of more than three thousand local fans and a group of supporters from the Marche, Giampaolo Medei’s team saw any hope of a comeback vanish already after the first two sets, on the heels of the net 3-0 suffered in the first leg at the Eurosuole Forum

The return match in fact ended with another full victory for the Poles (25-22, 25-18, 26-24). A bitter epilogue even considering that the comeback attempt already appeared complicated on the eve. Now the focus shifts to the SuperLega: on Sunday, April 5 (6 p.m.) the Scudetto semifinal will kick off in Verona.

The red and whites start with a good offensive approach, but they pay for ineffectiveness on serve and give in at the end of the first set, then lose continuity in the second. In the third set, rendered irrelevant by the already acquired result, space for the second lines and more balance, before the last dart of the hosts that finally closes the accounts.