They will be fifth against third in the standings on Saturday afternoon at the PalaParenti in Santa Croce sull’Arno (the match starts at 6pm), where Emma Villas Siena will return to play an internal championship match. It will be the third day of the championship, and the Tuscan team will try to return to victory after the match played last Sunday against Tinet Prata of Pordenone which ended in a tiebreak and which saw the Friulian team celebrate at the end.
This time coach Gianluca Graziosi’s team hopes for a different final result, even if the next opponent will also be a very difficult team. In fact, Abba Pineto won both matches played, first beating PalaParenti in the debut match played against Kemas Lamipel Santa Croce and then winning at home in the tiebreak against Brescia. The two successes brought 5 points to the Abruzzo team, which therefore trails leaders Aversa by just one point. Siena is fifth in the standings with 4 points.
In the match against Brescia, Abba Pineto had the strength to recover from a disadvantage and come back after finding themselves down two sets to one. Great performance for Gianluca Loglisci, who ended the match with 21 points and after attacking 38 times. Felipe Benavidez, an Argentinian with a Portuguese passport, also did well, scoring 18 points (with 49% in attack): with the 34 points he scored in the first two championship games he is in eleventh position as regards the best scorers of the A2 Series. Loglisci is just one position lower, twelfth, with 33 points scored in two races.
Also in double figures in terms of points scored against Brescia were central defender Kruno Nikacevic, 12 points with 4 winning blocks (he is third in the overall ranking in this fundamental after two games), Di Silvestre who put down 13 balls and Rok Jeroncic, author of 10 points with 5 blocks. In the first two matches Pineto showed good things in the various fundamentals: the final scoreboard of the match against Brescia speaks of a 44% percentage in attack, 15 winning blocks and 55% reception positivity.
Above all, the block data is rewarding the Abruzzo team, who are the second best team in A2 in terms of number of blocks made per set: 2.78 for each set. Only Ortona did better in the first two matches, with 3 winning blocks per set. In this special statistic Siena is seventh, with 2.13 winning blocks per set. But in the first two days Pineto is also second in terms of number of aces made per set: 1.56, for a total of 14 winning serves already made.
