Kamnik, Slovenia, February 5, 2014. Italy’s Andreoli LATINA defeated the home team Calcit KAMNIK of Slovenia by 3:1 (25-13, 25-21, 22-25, 25-17) in the first-leg quarterfinal match in the 2014 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup - Men.  Before the match, the home guys wanted to win at least one set against the strong opponent and succeeded in reaching this goal.

The first set went entirely under the control of Andreoli, but in the second Calcit already managed to restore the balance on the court. The Italians overcame the Slovenian resistance only at the end of the set. In the third period Calcit improved its performance even further, took control of the scoreboard and deservedly won it.  After having lost a set, the guys from the visiting team showed their best in the fourth to dominate in all elements of the game and achieve a well-deserved victory.

Sasa Starovic tallied up 16 points to become the most prolific player of the match, while the home team’s best scorer Domen Kotnik managed to achieve 12.

"The Italian players have many games against powerful opponents behind them, while with the exception of ACH Volley LJUBLJANA we rarely get to face such strong teams.  Therefore, it is understandable that in the beginning we were far too influenced by our respect for the opponent.  Our players were not relaxed enough and played below their abilities, but it is also true that the Italians played a virtually error-free first set.  Later on we did better.  I think that we could certainly show more, but the real situation is that Andreoli is better.  In Latina we will try to show a similar performance to what we did in the last three sets here,” Calcit coach Marko Brumen said after the game.