Rome, Italy, April 30, 2017. Cucine Lube CIVITANOVA will not leave Rome empty handed – the bronze medal of the 2017 CEV Volleyball Champions League – Men Final Four goes to the Italian team who defeated Germany’s BERLIN Recycling Volleys 3-1 (29-27, 22-25, 25-21, 25-21) in front of a raucous PalaLottomatica crowd. This result accounts for the second consecutive bronze medal won by the Italians, who had finished in third place last year in Krakow as well.
The manner in which Lube and BR Volleys fought in the first set heralded a long and tough game for the #CLF4Rome bronze medal. They went head to head from the very beginning. BERLIN had to work hard with Lube’s superb serving, but fought for every point and could have made it, had the first set ball by Paul Carroll not hit the net. It took Lube a while but they finally arrived at a score of 29-27 to lead the game 1-0.
None of the teams was willing to let it go in the second set either. This time, however, BERLIN managed to stay a step ahead of Lube who were unable to stay on top of the game when such a chance presented itself. Coach Roberto Serniotti’s men did not make that mistake and kept the initiative on their side to rally to a 25-22 win.
The BR Volleys had to chase the leading opponents again in set three but their reception was not as sharp as in the previous set and Lube were persistent with their attacks, especially by their two main scorers Tsvetan Sokolov and Osmany Juantorena. At 24-20 CIVITANOVA had more than enough set balls to waste and won this part of the game 25-21.
More of the same followed in the beginning of set no. 4. The Germans did not give up tough and came back from 5-8 to even it out at 9-9 with a block-out and a spike by Carroll. No side could get a decisive lead until the very end. A timely challenge by coach Serniotti kept his men on top of things at 20-18 but Lube managed to get there again at 21-21. Juantorena’s ace (24-21) set the fans on fire and another one gave his team the bronze medal.
“We played a very good game from start to the end,” said BR Volleys setter Sebastian Kühner. “It’s a pity we couldn’t capitalise on the lead that we had in the fourth set. Unfortunately, the match ended on the serving series by Juantorena. It is a pity that we lost, but at the end of the day we count that as a good performance.”
“It was important to play immediately after the match that we lost yesterday – to clean our minds and just reset everything. We take a lot of positives from this match, which is important, because we will be playing our next match in the championship series of the national league on Thursday and we want to take this good feeling into our next game,” commented Klemen Cebulj of the victorious CIVITANOVA.
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