Luca Del Favero
Luckily in the playouts, like in the playoffs, we start from scratch and everything that happened in the championship will no longer have value. Excellent news for E-Work, which enters the most important phase of the season knowing full well that it will no longer be able to afford the drops in tension that cost it many victories this season. What happened on the last day is incredible, because the opponent in the first playout round will be Battipaglia and not Sanga Milano as was expected. The Campania team surprisingly beat Ragusa (91-87 after two overtimes) and overtook the Lombard team in the standings.
Not exactly good news for Faenza, who showed in both championship matches that Battipaglia was suffering, especially in the return leg, losing in Campania. The playout series will begin on Sunday at 6pm in PalaBubani and will then move to Campania on Thursday 2nd May for game 2 with the possible third match scheduled for Sunday 5th again in Faenza. In case of defeat, E-Work would still have a more than affordable second round with Sanga Milano, who have no hope against Brixia Brescia. The mind is obviously turned only to Battipaglia, who was good at taking advantage of the regulation that did not provide for relegation at the end of the regular season, using the championship to build the team for the playouts. A strategy that has paid off at the moment, given that until March 3rd Battipaglia hadn’t won a single match and finished in penultimate place.
The market has brought quality Italians such as guard Giovanna Smorto and Elisa Policari, a former player who can be deadly in three-point shooting if on a positive day, and two foreigners. The French point guard Mathilde Domenger and the Ukrainian pivot forward Tetiana Yurkevichus, who arrived from Milan. Incredible is what happened on the bench with five coaches taking charge of a match. The first was Vasilis Maslarinos, who at the end of November gave way for three games to Franco Ghilardi, the current first assistant. Then it was the turn of Giuseppe Caboni from 9 December to the end of January, Mario Alberto Conte from the end of January to the end of March and finally Francesco Dragonetto. E-Work still has the chance to beat Battipaglia, but will have to solve its “mental problem”, because they often lack concentration in the 40 minutes and as a result trivial turnovers arrive which cost dearly.
Certainly the key to the series will be Tagliamento, as always, an offensive and charismatic leader, together with Cvijanovic who paradoxically benefited from the muscle injury which allowed her to rest after a period in which she had shown that she was really tired. Brossman and Dixon under the basket must assert themselves and it is hoped that Spinelli will be able to give precious minutes without being affected by the knee problem that sometimes torments her. Peresson will have to guarantee those heavy triples in key moments of the match and Niemojewska return to being decisive in the team’s play, emerging from the tunnel she has entered in recent weeks. Important variables during the series are Franceschelli who is guaranteeing a good offensive contribution and Edokpaigbe, who has grown and is empowered enough to earn precious minutes which she is exploiting.
