It took them different levels of effort to do it, but Itas Trentino and Sir Susa Vim Perugia benefited from homecourt advantage to strike first in the 2024-2025 Italian men’s SuperLega Credem Banca semifinals.

While Trentino, the best team in the regular season, needed five sets and a lot of determination to overcome Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza, Perugia, who had the second-best campaign in the Italian League qualification round, were always in control against Cucine Lube Civitanova to get a sweep.

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Playing at home, in Trento, Trentino were better in the key moments of the match to beat Piacenza 3-2 (25-23, 23-25, 25-21, 23-25, 18-16) and claim the first victory in their best-of-five series.

Star outside hitter Alessandro Michieletto was instrumental in the team’s victory, producing a match-high 25 points, with 19 kills, three blocks and three aces. Opposite Kamil Rychlicki also had a strong display, helping the team with 17 points (14 kills, two blocks, one ace).

“It was a beautiful match,” said setter Riccardo Sbertoli, the match’s MVP. “It was really pleasant to be on the court and the fans were amazing, they didn’t allow us to give up at the end of the fifth set. The semifinals are like this and I hope every match plays out in the same way. We’ll work well over the week and hopefully we can raise our level even further in the second match.”

Most of Piacenza’s production in the match came from Canadian outside hitter Stephen Maar, who led the team with 24 points (22 kills, one block, one ace), and Turkish Efe Ramazan, who added another 20, with 18 kills and two aces.

“The players gave everything and probably deserved something more, but the truth is that we made errors in key moments of basically every set and that can’t happen against a strong team like Trentino,” head coach Ljubomir Travica. “We had some opportunities to win the tie-breaker and the sets we lost and we didn’t take them. We showed today we can challenge them, so now we need to limit our errors.”

SuperLega Credem Banca 2024-2025 schedule and results

Perugia cruise against Civitanova

The other semifinal series began in an entirely different way as Perugia produced a dominant performance to beat Civitanova 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-22) and start on the right foot.

Ukrainian outside hitter Oleh Plotnytskyi continued to shine in the playoffs and registered 14 points (12 kills, one block, one ace). Opposite Wassim Ben Tara and outside hitter Kamil Semeniuk tallied ten points each, while libero Massimo Colaci was the MVP.

“This was just the first step for us,” Colaci reflected. “It was 3-0 but it wasn’t an easy match and I still expect a long series. We did many good things, such as getting them under pressure with our serves and remaining steady in the side out, but there were also some situations that we could have handled better, especially with our defensive system, and we’ll work on them for the next match.”

Missing team captain and libero Fabio Balaso, who had surgery due to a fracture on his right hand, Civitanova had Turkish opposite Adis Lagumdzija as the match’s top scorer with 16 points (ten kills, five aces, one block).

“Perugia were better than us in basically everything,” head coach Giampaolo Medei remarked. “I think we lacked better decision-making in some situations that we typically handle well. I felt we rushed things and didn’t perform at the level we could. I was proud of how the team fought until the end, but we need to raise our level, and that’s the goal for the second match.”

The two encounters will repeat next weekend, this time with the losing teams hosting. Lube and Perugia will play first, on Saturday, with Piacenza and Trentino following on Sunday.

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