Trentino made it to its second consecutive league final. Trentino played a near perfect game against Cuneo, who could not upset Italian champs on the court and get back in the series.
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Two zero down and a game to play in the house of the holders. Prandi´s team needed a win to keep its hopes to repeat its feat of the quarter finals against Montichiari alive. And they started just fine for the guest with no less than 6 blocks in the first set. The whole team was up for it and took the lead on a Lenadro Vissotto serve.
But that was the end of Cuneo´s game. From the second set, every single Trentino player stepped up a level. Following its injury suffered in game 1, Winiarski was back on court showing he had fully recovered, while Cuneo was making too many mistake in attack and on the serve. Cuneo had the better start in the third set (4-1), but Stoychev´s timeout ignited a Trento comeback that had Kaziyski and Grbic writen all over it. They combined for 7 aces during the game. This is precisely thanks to some good serving that Trento curised to a 2-1 lead (25-12). Trento had the momemtum and quickly escaped (4-0) in the fourth. The Italian champs were unstoppable by then. They went on to build a good margin and keep it till the end.
Emanuele Birarelli (Itas Diatec Trentino): “I´d like to spare a word for Winiarski´s great performance. It´s a shame for Della Lunga who had a chance to gain some court time in this end of season. Unfortunately he struggles with his knees and had to leave the play. We are very happy to be in the final: We proved we were still hungry following our champions league success”.
Silvano Prandi (Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo): “Our season ends here. It is very disappointing. Still, I was glad to see that my team could play at the very top. We would have liked to win all, but that was not possible”.
Never before had piacenza led against Macerata in a playoff semi final. After the splendid comeback of game 2, they added another valuable victory to take a 2-1 advantage in the series. Piacenza took the first set thanks to a great job at the net. Piacenza served hard, found four aces and forced Swiderski to be substituted by Snippe. Macerata´s reaction was immediate as Martino was serving. However, Piacenza resisted before hitting back. Zlatanov and Marshall combined excellently to give Piacenza a five-point edge. Once again Macerata struggled to receive and was quickly 2-0 down. The home side was getting more and more frustrated, as Zlatanov and co burst out of the starting block to lead 4-0 in the third set. Macerata just couldn´t get back in the game, making many mistakes on the serve.
Ferdinando De Giorgi (Lube Banca Marche Macerata): “Piacenza served better than us, forcing us to play high balls. They won all the long plays and that explains the final result. We´ll prepare as well as we can for the next games, that´s the only way. They will have a great spirit and more confidence than us, but we won´t give up”.
Angelo Lorenzetti (Copra Nordmeccanica Piacenza): “This advantage does not matter at all. I remember the semi final I played with Modena in 2003. Our opponent was Macerata. They were 2-1 up with game 4 to play at home. We tied the series and went through to the final. It will be tough on Monday”.
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