Perugia Won The First Quarterfinal Clash in Italy, Surprising Results in Belgium and Poland

The playoff stage started in Italy with the first quarterfinal matches, and the semifinalist of #CLVolleyM had no problems with it, while the Maaseik became the new leaders of Belgium after defeating Roeselare with a better game.

The quarterfinal stage brought a lot of brutal battles in Italy, but this was not the case for Perugia: The club, which finished the preliminary phase undefeated, faced Allianz Milano and received a 3-0 victory (25-22, 25-15, 25-18).

Mostly thanks to the superstar setter of the team, Simone Giannelli, the Perugia side had a very balanced score distribution, and four players of the squad scored in double digits. However, Jaime Jesus Herrera became the match's top scorer with 17 points, while Gualberto Flavio set up six blocks in total. Yuki Ishikawa (12) was the only player who scored more than seven points in Milano.

Apart from Perugia's clear victory, other teams had quite difficulty winning their matches. The CEV Cup finalist Valsa Group Modena and Itas Trentino became victorious after an epic tie-break against their opponent. Furthermore, a surprising result also occurred for Cucine Lube Civitanova. They met WithU Verona, and although the Lube side was the pre-favorite of the match, they suffered a third-set defeat and lost the advantage.

The finalist of the CEV Cup, Knack Roeselare, visited Greenyard Maaseik in the third leg of the Belgian EuroMillions League winners' stage. Despite the third set, the hosts played a superior game and defeated their biggest rival by 3-1 (25-17, 25-19, 17-25, 25-21).

With this victory, Maaseik also rose to first place in the overall standings, while Roeselare dropped to vice-leader. Adam Bartos (21 points) and Athanasios Protopsaltis (20 points) became the most productive players on the winning side, while Seppe Rotty's 18 points were not enough for Roeselare.

Another surprising result occurred in Poland. The semifinalist of the #CLVolleyM, Jastrzebski Wegiel, took the court against PGE Skra Belchatow in the 28th week of the Polish PlusLiga. Even though Jastrzebksi performed well and found a 2-1 lead in sets, the Belchatow side managed to take the last point of the tie-break and won the clash in five sets (3-2: 25-22, 22-25, 19-25, 25-21, 15-13).

With this failure, Jastrzebski took their eighth loss in the domestic league. Now their number of victories is tied with ZAKSA; however, Jastrzebski continued to stand higher because of the seven-point gap between these two clubs.

Aleksandar Atansijevic was selected as the MVP of the match with 26 points in total, while Tomasz Fornal and Rafal Szymura tallied 17 points apiece in Jastrzebski.

While the #CLVolleyM semifinalist Perugia did not let any surprises happen this weekend in their first quarterfinal match in Italy, many unexpected results happened in national leagues. Now, the most elite squads in Europe will focus on improving their games to become victorious next time.