Trento, 19 November 2021

SuperLega, notes and statistical curiosities after the 3-1 home win over Piacenza

Some statistical curiosities emerged after the preview of the 10th round of the regular season of the SuperLega Credem Banca 2021/22, won Thursday night 3-1 by Itas Trentino at home against Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza.

HOME TRADITION RESPECTED. The victory in four sets obtained in this occasion confirmed the ten-year positive tradition of Trentino Volley in the home matches against Piacenza. Thursday night saw the eighteenth consecutive victory at the BLM Group Arena against the team from Emilia Romagna, which cannot forget the last success obtained in Trento: May 17th, 2009, a 3-2 victory in game 5 of the Play Off Final that gave the red and white the Scudetto.

RECORD BLOCKS IN THE FIRST SET. The opening set of the match against Gas Sales Bluenergy was won 25-15, thanks to the superlative performance of the yellow-blue block, which scored eight times in that set alone. This is a record number of points in a single set, same as the first set of Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia-Diatec Trentino 3-2 on December 7th, 2013. Also in that case eight point blocks arrived in the first period, which ended with a 29-31 advantage, therefore with a much higher number of actions available.

ALWAYS ON POINTS AT THE BLM GROUP ARENA. The arena in Via Fersina continues to forewarn points for Itas Trentino in the SuperLega Credem Banca 2021/22 regular season rankings. On Thursday night, the yellow-blue team collected the entire stake, as it had already happened in the previous home matches against Verona, Civitanova and Monza. Even when Lorenzetti's team lost in front of its own public, like last November 3rd against Padova, it still obtained a point for its own ranking, helping Kaziyski and his teammates to stay at the top with Civitanova at 19 points.

432 FOR KAZIYSKI AGAINST PIACENZA. 432 out of 5,093; almost 9% of the points scored so far in the yellow-blue jersey, Matey Kaziyski has scored them against Piacenza. This is the opponent that the Kaiser has "hit" the most times and the 16 points scored on Thursday night in the preview of the 10th round have certainly contributed to this data, but above all the many encounters (recent and past) that have seen him as a protagonist against the team from the city of Emilia. The best score in a single match with Piacenza, the number 1 of Itas Trentino scored on May 4th 2008, during game 2 of the Scudetto Final lost at PalaBanca in the tie-break; in that case Matey scored 30 times, with 66% in attack, one block and two aces.

LISINAC FIRST IN... THE FIRST HALF. The Serbian plsyer confirmed his ability as a purebred attacker also against Piacenza, scoring 67% of the balls served by the excellent Sbertoli. Also thanks to the 12 out of 18 recorded in this case (with four direct errors), Liske continues to occupy the first place in the league's performance ranking dedicated to the weighted average of the attack, with a winning first half percentage of 68% and an index (the ratio that takes into account the whole nature of the balls attacked) 0.11 higher than the second in the ranking Solé (8.15 to 8.04).

A YELLOWBLUE SETTER MVP AT THE BLM GROUP ARENA AFTER TWO AND A HALF YEARS. It doesn't happen so often that the jury of journalists in the press box awards a setter from Trentino the MVP prize, as happened on Thursday night to Riccardo Sbertoli. The last one to do so before him had obviously been Simone Giannelli, voted as the best during the first round match of the 2019 CEV Cup Final, played at the BLM Group Arena on March 19th, 2019. Looking at the statistics with an even closer eye, however, it turns out that last season Nimir Abdel-Aziz (next opponent of the Gialloblù, Sunday evening in Modena) did the same, and despite being a role opposite, he obtained the recognition last December 1st, 2020 in the Champions League match against Novosibirsk, when he reinvented himself as a setter to replace Simone and his natural substitute Sperotto (both out due to Covid).

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