On Saturday, January 25th (local time), the men's semi-final of the Coppa Italia, one of the two major titles in Italian volleyball, took place. Perugia, where Ishikawa Yuki plays and is aiming for a consecutive victory, faced Verona, who advanced to the Coppa Italia semi-finals for the first time, but lost 2-3 (25-22, 28-26, 14-25, 19-25, 12-15) and finished the tournament in third place.
In the first set, Verona made many mistakes, while Perugia scored points with various attacks, including OP Herrera and OH Ishikawa, and took the lead 25-22. In the second set, Verona maintained the lead until the end, with OH Mozic scoring a lot of points, but a service ace from OP Ventara, who came in as a substitute, tied the score and brought the game to deuce at the last minute. In the end, OH Ishikawa scored a spike to win the set 28-26, and Perugia took the set 2-0 and advanced to the finals.
However, in the third set, Verona started scoring points mainly from OH Mozic and pulled away from Perugia. On the other hand, Perugia's attacks were not successful, and even though OP Ventara was brought in again, Verona's momentum was not stopped. In the end, Verona took a big lead of 14-25 and took the set back.
Verona's momentum continued in the fourth set, this time with OH Keita scoring a lot with his spikes and serves, and MB Vitelli, who came in as a substitute, also contributed to the team with his blocks and serves. Perugia scored mainly with OP Ventara, but Verona struggled with their serves and blocks, and Verona took the set to a full set at 19-25.
In the fifth set, Verona took the lead with an ace from OH Mozic at 3-5. After that, Perugia scored with spikes from OH Ishikawa and MB Russo, but Verona held out in the reception and steadily made side-outs, mainly with OH Keita's high spikes, to prevent Perugia from breaking. In the end, MB Dzinger's block made it 12-15, and Verona came back to win against Perugia and advanced to the final.
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https://www.legavolley.it/match/38951
Yuki Ishikawa started in this game and scored 15 points, the most on the team. However, he lost 9 points on attack (3 points from mistakes and 6 points from blocks), and his attack efficiency rate was 151 TP3T, which was lackluster offensively.
Also, OH Semeniuk, who was on the opposite side of Ishikawa, lost 7 points in serve reception, and considering his attack effectiveness rate of 10%, it must be said that his performance was tough. In the past, OH Plotnicki would have been brought in from the bench at times like this to change the flow of the game, but he was unable to take the court in this match after recovering from an injury.
In addition, Perugia's serve, which is a team weapon, was weak on this day. Up until this point in the league, Perugia had averaged more than two service aces per set, but in this match, they only managed two in five sets (Verona had nine). Moreover, Verona was missing OH Szaboronok, who was the key player on the reception, due to injury, and OH Mozic and OH Keita, who are not particularly good at receiving, were in charge of reception.
On the other hand, Verona's failure to allow Perugia to score aces was one of the major reasons for their victory. In particular, OH Keita was constantly targeted in serve reception, yet he did not concede a single point in the five sets.
There was also a big difference between the two teams in terms of block points, with Perugia scoring only four in the five sets (and none from the third set onwards), while Verona scored 14 block points. In particular, S. Abaev scored five block points by himself, which shows how well Perugia's left attacks were contained.
Of course, the big reason for Verona's victory was the incredible scoring power of their two star players, OH Keita and OH Mojic. OH Keita scored 30 points (3 on serves and 1 on blocks) and OH Mojic scored 28 points (2 on serves and 4 on blocks), which together accounted for about two-thirds of the points scored by themselves. Mojic in particular was unstoppable, with 39 attacks and only one point conceded, for an efficiency rate of 54%.
In the top category where the opposite is likely to be the team's best scorer, it's rare to see a game that is so biased towards left-field attacks. Verona's pitching on this day was a bit like watching high school volleyball (lol). Still, it was the best choice for this game.
I would also like to pay tribute to the mental strength of the Verona team members, who continued to play without losing concentration even after losing two sets in a row, especially the frustrating way they lost the second set.
Verona advanced to the Coppa Italia final for the first time, while Perugia missed out on winning the Coppa Italia title for the second time in a row. For Ishikawa personally, this was his fourth consecutive Coppa Italia semi-final loss since his time with Milan. This year in particular, he lost in the semi-finals as a member of the undefeated champions Perugia, so it must have been even more frustrating for him than when he was a challenger with Milan.
However, there are still domestic leagues and the Champions League remaining. OH Plotnicki's return is not far away. I want them to switch gears from here and focus on the remaining titles.
In the final, Civitanova defeated Verona 3-2 (26-24, 25-15, 23-25, 21-25, 15-10) to win their eighth title and their first in four tournaments since 2021.
By the way, since 2022, Civitanova had been prevented from advancing to the Final Four in the quarterfinals at Milan, Milan, and Monza for three consecutive years by teams with Japanese players, so this was their first victory in a long time, having finally been freed from the curse of Japanese players (lol).
Photo: volleyballworld.com
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