Luxembourg, December 4, 2020. A very strong Magdalena Stysiak, well supported by setter Ofelia Malinov, stole the show at this week’s CEV Champions League Volley 2021 Pool A event in Scandicci leading the home team to a victorious outcome in all three games they played from Tuesday through Thursday at the PalaRiadoli and a valuable advantage ahead of the second round-robin tournament in early February in Schwerin.

The three-day event started with a thrilling all-Italian clash between Unet e-work Busto Arsizio and hosts Savino Del Bene Scandicci. Twice in this rollercoaster of a match, the visiting side came back from a set down, before finally conceding at 15-17 in the tie-breaker. Savino Del Bene’s opposite Magdalena Stysiak delivered six aces towards the victory. Three of them came in the deciding fifth set when she served eight times in a row to give her team a 9-3 advantage. Unet e-work managed to recover quickly from that blow and caught up at 10-10 only to end up on the losing side in the overtime.

In that match alone, the 202-cm-tall Polish striker piled up 25 points, to which she added another 19 in Wednesday’s four-set win over Germany’s SSC Palmberg Schwerin and 19 more in Thursday’s shutout of Poland’s Developres SkyRes Rzeszow as she picked up the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Match award on the day she celebrated her 20th birthday. Stysiak collected a total of 63 points to top the overall scorers chart in the League.

Magdalena Stysiak, opposite of Savino Del Bene Scandicci: "I'm really excited. We played really well in all three games and we are first in the pool!"

Massimo Barbolini, head coach of Savino Del Bene Scandicci: "It is a difficult pool and earning eight points in the first three games is a great result. It's good that the team has grown over these three days.”



Developres SkyRes were close to upsetting Unet e-work on Wednesday, after losing to Palmberg in four sets the previous day. The Polish team came back from two sets behind to level the match, and then pushed the tie-breaker into extra time only to lose 14-16 in the end. Unet e-work’s Camilla Mingardi scored the match high of 26 points and was named MVP of the game.

In Thursday’s direct clash for the second place in the current pool standings, the team from Schwerin mastered a straight-set victory over their opponents from Busto Arsizio. American opposite Hayley Spelman earned the MVP nomination after leading the match scorers on 19 points to her name.



For more info, go to the CEV Champions League Volley competition website.