Piacenza – Krasnodar
“It was a very balanced game and I have some regrets for the third set where we lost focus and did lack accuracy, especially in the final phases” home mentor Gianni Caprara says. “I think that this was the turning point of the game. We have played a very strong opponent and it wasn’t easy to find the right energy and concentration only a few days after the finals of the national cup.“
“PIACENZA is a very strong team which is currently the most solid side in Italy’s national league as they just won the national cup” the head coach of Dinamo KRASNODAR, Avital Selinger, stresses. “They stand out in every single fundamental: defense, block, attack, etc. and they have a very balanced roster. We had some ups and downs tonight and the teams needed to work a lot, so I think that the fatigue could have an impact in the end.“
US American Destinee Hooker – who top scored with 25 points – was voted MVP of the game while Carmen Turlea and Lucia Bosetti paced the home side with 22 and 21 respectively.
The start of the game was very close with PIACENZA going up 8:6 at the first technical time-out; that trend continued all the way through though the home side could move up 14:11 and 16:12 with Bosetti on fire. Dinamo attempted a comeback powered by Hooker but PIACENZA responded with Turlea (22:15) and she was the one who eventually said the last word for the final 25-17. The stats for the first set did really reflect the supremacy of the local heroines who killed five blocks (vs. 1) and did register better figures also in attack (41% vs. 31%) and defense (60 vs. 44%).
The second set did follow a similar plot but this time it was Dinamo to set the pace of the game by the first mandatory stop (8:6); Caprara did ask for a time-out as his side was trailing 8:12 and he eventually got the effects he was hoping for as captain Manuela Leggeri and Floortje Meijners leveled the score at 12 all. With Dinamo bombing with their attackers, PIACENZA responded with great defense, going up 16:13 at the second technical time-out; with a series of five points vs. one, Dinamo flipped the charts around going up 18:17 and cruised away (25-20) exploiting the attacks killed by Hooker and Helena Havelkova.
Dinamo dictated the tempo of the game also in set 3 (7:5, 10:7) but Martina Guiggi, Meijners and Bosetti clawed back vigorously for the 10 all. The hosts got a margin of three points by the second technical time-out but Caprara was forced to stop the game as Dinamo had made it to -1; Rebecchi got up 19:17 but later on Dinamo showed some terrific blocks to move to the front once more, make it 24:22 and finish it off at 26-24 as the atmosphere was getting really “hot” at PalaBanca.
Things developed in a totally different way in the fourth set where PIACENZA quickly moved the score to 10:4 and somehow overlapped their opponents halfway through (16:8). Though Russian libero Svetlana Kryuchkova – a double world champion in 2006 and 2010 – was doing well, still PIACENZA was not to stop (22:12) and Leggeri blocked for the 25-13 that called for the tie-break. Killing 7 blocks and with more than 50% of efficiency in attack PIACENZA made sure Dinamo could not stand a chance in this section of the game.
After a very close start, Dinamo switched sides of the court by leading 8:6 in the tie-break and though Caprara stopped the game, he could not prevent his Russian opponent from going up 12:7. By this moment the fate of the game looked compromised and Hooker finalized the quest of her side by cashing the final 15-10 that meant a valuable 3:2 away win for the Russian heavyweight.
To read more volleyball news from this competition click on CEV Challenge Cup 2013 F.
