The bronze medalists of the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship, Numia Vero Volley Milano are the first team guaranteed in the 2024-2025 Lega Volley Femminile Serie A1 Tigotà Finals.

They secured their spot in the Scudetto Finals on Sunday, when they won their best-of-five semifinal series against Savino Del Bene Scandicci with three victories. Their opponents will come from the series between Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano and Igor Gorgonzola Novara, which now has the world champions leading 2-1 ahead of the fourth match, on Wednesday.

• Watch the Lega Volley Femminile Serie A1 Tigotà playoffs live on VBTV

After showing some inconsistency at the start of the season, Milano seem to be peaking at the right time as the 3-1 (16-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-17) comeback win over Scandicci that made the team advance to the Final was their 12^th straight.

Star opposite Paola Egonu led Milano’s offense with 25 points (21 kills, three blocks, one ace), but the team had three other players getting to double digits in scoring in fellow Olympic champions Myriam Sylla (12) and Anna Danesi (11) and French outside hitter Héléna Cazaute (11), who came off the bench and won the MVP award.

“It wasn’t easy to win the series in three matches, and we certainly don’t take the opportunity of playing in the Finals for granted,” said Cazaute. “Our team had a great energy today, and I was confident we would deliver a great performance. Coming off the bench is never easy, but I tried to bring positive energy and determination and to give everything I had.”

Milano also deserve credit for limiting Scandicci’s star opposite Ekaterina Antropova to 20 points (15 kills, three blocks, two aces). Besides her, middle blocker Linda Nwakalor, with 14 points, and outside hitter Camilla Mingardi, with 11, were the other players in the team to get to double digits in scoring.

With the victory in front of over 5,000 home fans, Milano earned the right to appear in the Scudetto Finals for the third time in the last four seasons – they took silver in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. Scandicci, who were second last year and third in 2022-2023, will now play in the bronze medal series, where they will try to make their third straight podium appearance.

Lega Volley Femmnilie – Match Schedule & Results

Conegliano back to winning ways

In the other series, Conegliano responded well to their first defeat in 50 matches and, after a slow first set, got back to their usual selves to hand Novara a solid 3-1 (16-25, 25-18, 25-11, 25-15) victory in Villorba and regain control of the series.

The team’s ‘Big Three’ delivered in what was arguably their most important match of the season so far, with Swedish opposite Isabelle Haak leading the team with 21 points and star outside hitters Zhu Ting and Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Guimarães adding 19 each – the Brazilian won the MVP award.

“We didn’t play the way we wanted in the first set; they attacked us and we had no answers,” Gabi reflected. “But we stuck together and started to find our game in the second set as we got more touches on defense, passed better and took our offense back to its usual level. But we know Novara won’t give up and we need to be ready for another tough battle on Wednesday.”

Novara’s top scorer in the match was Russian opposite Tatiana Tolok, who registered 13 points (11 kills, one block, one ace), one more than German outside hitter Lina Alsmeier.

“Conegliano improved their blocking and defense a lot in the second set, and that created many problems for us,” Alsmeier added. “We couldn’t get back to the level we showed in the first set, and also made too many errors. It starts all over again on Wednesday, and we’ll be ready to fight and try to extend the series again.”

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