In the Italian men's volleyball league Serie A, Ishikawa Yuki's Milan team played the first leg of the playoff semi-finals away against Civitanova on Thursday, April 13th local time, and lost 0-3 (17-25, 22-25, 17-25).
Ishikawa Yuki also started in this match and scored seven points.
First set starting lineup
Milan
OH: Melgarejo (Cuba), Ishikawa
MB: Rosell (Argentina), piano (Italy)
OP: Patry (France)
S: Porro (Italy)
L: Pesaresi (Italy)
Civitanova
OH: Nikolov (Bulgaria), Yant (Cuba)
MB: Sineniese (France), Anzani (Italy)
OP: Zaitsev (Italy)
S: Dececco (Argentina)
L: Barrasso (Italy)
*Positions: OH = outside hitter, MB = middle blocker, OP = opposite, S = setter, L = libero
The stats for this match areHere
Match Report
In the first set, Civitanova started off with a 0-4 lead due to Milano's mistakes and a spike from Yount.
From there, Milano continued to break the lead with spikes from Ishikawa and Patri, bringing the score to 7-8, but Civitanova again closed the gap to 7-11 with spikes from Nikolov and other efforts.
In the final stages, a spike from Zaitsev and a block from Yount put Civitanova ahead of Milan at 15-22, and then Ishikawa made a serve error, giving Civitanova the set, 17-25.
In the second set, the early stages of the set saw both teams scoring points mainly from the mid-range, resulting in a close match at 6-6.
From there, Civitanova scored four consecutive breaks with a service ace from Nikolov and a block from Yount to take a 7-11 lead.
Milan also scored side outs with Melgarejo's spikes, and in the final minutes, Ishikawa's spike brought them within one point at 20-21.
However, a block by Dececco gave Civitanova a set point at 21-24, and in the end, Ishikawa made another serve error, giving Civitanova the set at 22-25.
In the third set, Civitanova took a 3-6 lead early on with spikes from Sineniedze and Zaitsev.
Milan also got a service ace from Porro to close the gap to 6-7, but then an ace from Anzani and a block from Sineniese allowed Civitanova to widen the gap to 6-11.
Nikolov continued to widen the gap to 11-19 with spikes and service aces, and finally Zaitsev scored a service ace to give Civitanova the set at 17-25.
As a result, Milan lost 0-3 to Civitanova.
MVP: L. Fabio Barrazo (Serve receive success rate 55%)
Ishikawa Yuki scored 7 points, with an attack success rate of 37% and a serve receive success rate of 50%.
The second leg of the playoff semi-finals will be held at home in Milan on Sunday, April 16th at 18:00 local time (1:00 am Japan time).
Thoughts on the match etc.
As expected, with the short time since their last match and the fact they had to travel a lot, Milan was unable to perform at their best and ended up losing one-sidedly to Civitanova.
In my previous article, I mentioned Milan's strong defense as one of their defining features, but the fact that Civitanova's team attack success rate in this match was quite high at 65% shows that this was not working (Zaitsev, despite being the opposite player, had an attack success rate of 82% despite returning the serve with a 91% success rate (lol)).
Milan also made some uncharacteristic mistakes, such as when Ishikawa fell while receiving a serve and was unable to spike, allowing Porro to give away the set.
I think the reason was that I was still tired and didn't have time to take measures to deal with the situation.
However, this time it can't be helped, and I don't think it's a problem.
The real test will be the second match at home to Milan, where they will have a chance to fully recover.
But I think there were some benefits.
That was Patry's achievement.
Although they lost the game, Patry was in good form and was the team's best scorer for the first time in a while.
Ishikawa, Melgarejo, and Porro, who performed particularly well in the match against Perugia, have recovered, and with the addition of the in-form Patri, we're sure to win from next time onwards!
Everyone in the middle should be fine now (laughs).
I'm also planning to go to the venue for the fourth race, so I'm hoping that they'll win the next race and qualify for the finals there (laughs).
Anyway, let's watch the next battle with great enthusiasm.
Photo: Lega Pallavolo Series A
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