Verona, 18 February 2019

Calzedonia Verona-Itas Trentino 3-2, the match report

Here the commentary of the match. Angelo Lorenzetti calls for Giannelli, Lisinac and Kovacevic to enter the game, who as usual are the starters already since the beginning together with Vettori as opposite, Russell as spiker, Candellaro in the center, Grebennikov libero. Calzedonia’s starting six has many former Itas players such as De Pandis as libero, Solè and Birarelli in the center, Kazisky in position 4 together with Manavi, Spirito and Boyer as diagonal setter-opposite. At the beginning of the match Trento definitely has the lead, that after the initial tie (until 5-5) accelerates with Kovacevic in attack and Grebennikov in defense (8-5 and 10-6), forcing Grbic to interrupt the game. As the match goes on Verona catches up thanks to Kaziyski and Boyer (12-11) reaching the opponents at 15, taking advantage of a net mistake by Giannelli. The game interruption by Lorenzetti refreshes our players‘ minds, who try and catch up thanks to Kovacevic and Vettori (19-17), then with the serve of Lisinac (23-19) that enlarges even more the gap. This set ends with the winning attacks by Russell reaching 25-21 in favour of Trento. Calzedonia Verona tries and react at the beginning of the second partial (5-8), counting on the serve and on Boyer. Lorenzetti’s time out is really useful because then Itas catches up thanks to Lisinac (9-10), before suffering again a long disadvantage because of Boyer (attack) and Spirito’s blocks (13-17). Right in the hardest moment Itas gains some points (15-17) thanks to blocks (Vettori vs Boyer and Candellaro vs Solè), and then Kovacevic’s attack leads the team to 20-21 (Grbic’s time out). Then Kaziysky takes the lead with his attacks (20-24) and then they reach the tie thanks to Boyer at 21-25.
Itas Trentino gets better in the first part of the third set already, led by Kovacevic and Vettori; Codarin enters the field in exchange for Lisinac (who is still not at his best), but the Friulano mid-fielder manages to do his job and Trento gets ahead to 8-5, 12-8 and 16-11. Verona makes a bit of turnover and gets until 23-20, exploiting Alletti’s block phase; Lorenzetti smells the danger and asks for two time-outs in few seconds, which allows his team to focus on the game and get to 2-1 with the freshly-entered Van Garderen (25-21).
The fourth set starts in the worst possible way for the World Champions, who struggles in reception and attack and easily got overcame 1-8 and 5-13 by Boyer and Kaziyski, who are on fire. Kovacevic tries to find a reaction at service (10-15) but it’s just an illusion since Verona enlarges the gap (15-22) and gets fast to the tie-break with Manavi on 18-25 already.
The fifth set is fought point-to-point (5-5, 11-12); Verona gets to 14-16 and wins the game with the mvp Kaziyski.

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