With the 29 points scored in Palmi, he in a certain sense narrowly “won” that sort of virtual personal duel at a distance with the other opposite, the Polish Pawel Stabrawa (who scored 28 points) and at the same time time surpassed the milestone of 1000 in his career in the regular season. But above all, Niccolò Cappelletti proved once again that he is the leading man of ErmGroup San Giustino, becoming a thorn in the side of his opponents even from place 2. The match played in Calabria had two faces: a first part with OmiFer ahead 2-0 and then a second with the white and blue comeback, now one step away from the feat that would have turned the tide of the match. The same situation that ErmGroup had experienced positively in mid-January, when at home it managed to win the tie-break against Avimecc Modica, which was leading 14-11. In short, it’s as if Palmi’s 2-3 had gone hand in hand with that victory, even though there’s still a bitter taste in my mouth. “Certainly, when you come to play for a success in that way and for some reason the result escapes you – says Cappelletti – there is a bit of regret, but for how we started and for the pitfalls that could have been, see the long sustained away trip and the euphoric climate of Palmi for the triumph in the Italian Cup, taking control of the situation after two lost sets was absolutely not a given. However, we returned with a point that could mean a lot: at the moment everything we can take away from the others is gold for the ranking.” For the third time in a row, you lost the first set and in this case after being several points down, you recovered to lead 23-22. Any problems with the approach to the race that are emerging at the end? “I think it’s a little difficult to immediately regain energy after such an important journey, so it’s normal that at the start we start with the brakes slightly on, but then we were good at restoring our game and taking this point with the regret of victory.” In the third and fourth sets, which you also won with a clear margin, didn’t you notice a minimum of tiredness among the Palmi players? “No, I still saw them as spirited and with great motivation, so I wouldn’t talk about tiredness, but about an acceleration that we gave and that they underwent, because we have the qualities and credentials to be able to compete with everyone. By increasing our level of play, they got into difficulty and the situation was rebalanced.”
