ACH Volley LJUBLJANA
The start of the match was more than encouraging for the home team as it quickly took the lead. Soon after the first technical time-out (9:5) the guests needed to regroup but successful attacks killed by the local heroes forced them to call another time-out at 13:7. MACERATA woke up after the second mandatory stop, coming close in the final rush (24:23) but ACH Volley’s Milan Rašić managed to score the next point for his team.
The team from Ljubljana continued with its great performance in the second set, taking the lead with 4:1. Its players were excellent in defense and they also stood out in attack while the Italian team was performing below its usual standards. At the second technical time-out the home team was already leading by ten points. The guests tried to regroup but their thoughts must have been already directed to the third set as ACH Volley sealed it with a terrific 25-13.
In the third set MACERATA showed it was not ready to surrender and finally unleashed its real potential. Its players claimed the lead and had no problems in keeping it. ACH Volley tried to take it back but failed every time, allowing MACERATA to win its first set in this match.
In the fourth set ACH Volley repeated the great start of the first two sets, taking the lead and making sure its opponents were not able to overturn the result. Nevertheless, the Italian team managed to catch up at 13:12 but afterwards the hosts once again took control of the operations. In the final minutes it looked like the team from Italy had returned back but Mory Sidibe’s final attack brought MACERATA down to its knees and ACH Volley celebrated the victory and three valuable points for the standings of the group.
MVP of the match was Uroš Kovačević with 19 points. ACH Volley’s coach Luke Slabe was extremely happy with the performance of his players and the fact that they successfully managed the pressure of Olympic medallist Parodi who joined the game for MACERATA in the third set: “As we play Generali UNTERHACHING in Germany next week we’ll be responsible for our fate in this competition” he says.
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