Powerful Start By Trentino, Jastrzebski Failed Against Zawiercie

This weekend, the excitement in the Italian national league continued with the kickoff of the semifinal stage. The biggest favorites for this year’s title, Trentino and Perugia, had no difficulties and started the series with a victory. On the other hand, things did not go well as expected for Jastrzebski since they suffered a defeat against their biggest rival in Poland.

The top four teams of Italy took the court for their first clashes in the semifinal round. The champions of the regular season and this year’s CEV Champions League Volley SuperFinalist, Itas Trentino, faced Mint Vero Volley Monza. The first set was quite challenging for both teams, but after taking it by 27-25, Trentino started to play a superior game and won the match in straight sets (3-0: 27-25, 25-20, 25-22).

Italian outside hitter Alessandro Michieletto and Luxemborgian opposite Kamil Rychlicki became the most productive players on the winning side, scoring 17 points apiece. Eric Loeppky’s 20 points were not enough on the Monza side. By this score, Trentino took the 1-0 lead in the series.

The Polish SuperFinalist Jastrzebski Wegiel continued their national league with the 28th week of the Polish PlusLiga regular season. They hosted their closest follower, Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie. Zawiercie started the match quite powerfully and took the first two sets without difficulties. The third set went to Jastrzebski, but then they failed to extend the match to the decisive fifth set and left the court with a 3-1 loss (10-25, 21-25, 25-23, 21-25).

Polish opposite Karol Butryn became the top scorer of the match: Including four aces and one block point, Butryn tallied 24 points in total, which made him the MVP of the game. By 19 points, Tomasz Fornal was the only player who scored in double digits in Jastrzebski.

Despite the failure, Jastrzebski is still on the top of the overall standings in Poland after 28 weeks. However, now the gap has decreased to only two points with Zawiercie. In the remaining two weeks, even though Jastrzebski would manage to complete the main season as leaders, clearly, the mental advantage is now on the Zawiercie side, and we will expect a huge battle between these two in the playoff stage.

The SuperFinalists of this year’s #CLVolleyM will definitely aim to become the best team of the continent, but before that, they will continue competing on the national level. While things are going quite well for Trentino in the Italian playoffs, this was not the case this weekend for Jastrzebski. We will see how the most elite clubs of Europe perform in their following clashes.