On Sunday, October 6th local time, Perugia, where Ishikawa Yuki plays, faced off against Padua in the second round of the first half of the Italian Superlegga. Supported by the home crowd, Padua pushed last season's champions Perugia to the brink, but Perugia managed to shake them off and win 3-2 (25-23, 23-25, 21-25, 26-24, 15-10).
Yuki Ishikawa, who scored the most points on the team with 16 points, was selected as the MVP.
Padua was leading in the first set until the end, but Perugia managed to turn the game around with MB Rosell's blocks, but Padua won the second and third sets with OP Maslovic's efforts. However, Perugia won the fourth set thanks to OP Ventara's recovery, and in the fifth set, Perugia showed their power as champions by scoring points mainly from OH Ishikawa, and won the game.
However, as Ishikawa himself commented in X, "The content of the match was not good at all," Perugia was forced into a full set by an opponent that Padua should have won at least 3-1 to earn three points. In addition to allowing Padua to score points with serves and blocks, Perugia also made 14 attacking mistakes, which led to consecutive losses of points.
Even though Perugia is a star-studded team, if they don't perform well they will be overtaken by lower-ranked teams, and I think this match once again demonstrated the high level and fearsomeness of the Italian Superlegga.
But Perugia's depth of players is really cheating (laughs). Even if OP Ventara is no good, OP Herrera comes in, and even if one of the outside players is no good, OH Plotnitski comes in, and MB Sore is waiting in the middle. So of course they're strong.
But Padua did well. OH Porro seems to be struggling a bit on the offensive side compared to last season, his rookie year, but new signing OP Maslovic is doing better than expected. Also, it's impressive to see that coach Cuccini has finally started placing a defensive outside player in position 2.
Perugia's next opponent is Ishikawa's former club Modena. This season, Modena has some explosive players in their side attacking positions, so we want to do something about it before they get on a roll.
Perugia
Starting lineup: S Gianelli (8), OH Ishikawa (16), MB Rosell (14), OP Ventara (8), OH Semeniuk (14), MB Russo (6), L Corati
Substitutes: OP Herrera (9), OH Cianciota
Padua
Starting line-up: OH Sedlacek (13), MB Krossart (8), S Falaschi (2), OH Porro (12), MB Plack (7), OP Maslovic (22), L Dies
Substitutes: OP Stefani (1), S Pedron, OH Orioli
MVP: OH Ishikawa Yuki
16 points (2 blocks), attack efficiency rate 20.00%
Detailed match stats here:
https://www.legavolley.it/match/38215
Next match: Saturday, October 12th, 25:00 Japan time vs Modena
Broadcast: VBTV, FOD (Perugia match only)
Photo: legavolley.it, Sir Safety Perugia
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