Volleyball, Perugia beats Las Palmas: goes to the Champions League final, the eighth in history

SIR SICOMA MONINI PERUGIA – GUAGUAS LAS PALMAS 3-0 (25-18, 25-21, 25-23)

Perugia clearly wins, reaching the Champions League semi-finals for the eighth time in its history. He will therefore be able to defend the trophy won last May 18th in Lodz on 16 and 17 May in Turin. In front of over 4500 spectators, including Nicolò Filippucci, with a past in the Sir youth team and winner of the last Sanremo Festival among the “new proposals”, the supremacy against Las Palmas was never in doubt and in the end the success came in three sets.

Lorenzetti started with Giannelli as director and Ben Tara as opposite, Russo and Crosato in the centre, Plotnytskyi and Semeniuk as forwards, and Colaci as libero. Sir extended their lead right from the start, dominating the first set thanks to the Ben Tara-Semeniuk tandem (5 points each) and eventually beating the Spaniards thanks to Spencer’s serving error (25-18). In the second half, Las Palmas, kept afloat by an always inspired Ormany Juantorena (13 points in total for him), held the balance until 11-11, and then gradually gave in to Perugia’s change of pace inspired by a rediscovered Plotnytskyi (6 points in the set), who went on to win thanks to Ben Tara’s parallel attack (25-21).

Las Palmas’ reaction occurred at the beginning of the third set, with Sir being surprised until they found themselves down at 13-16, managing to maintain the advantage until 23-22, then there’s Sir, in the bedlam of PalaBarton, they went on to win with a block on Juantorena and an ace from Semeniuk (25-23). Among the ranks of Perugia on the shields Plotnytskyi (MVP and best scorer with 13 points equal to Ben Tara, the latter with 4 blocks). Sir will return to play on Monday 6 April at 5.30pm at home against Piacenza for Game 1 of the championship playoff semi-final.