The defeat in Game 1 still hurts, especially for the way it came. In Fidenza, Ferrara Basket had the game in hand, ahead by six points with two minutes to go, then – as unfortunately happened other times in the season – an inexplicable blackout which handed the first act of the playoff semi-final series to Fulgor. Immediately after the match at the Pala Pratizzoli, there was a lot of discouragement among the players and technical staff, because the feeling of being on the right path to direct the series in their direction was all there, and instead the match plan went up in smoke due to some bloody mistakes in the final moments. Ferrara played well, for long stretches better than Fidenza, and precisely for this reason it is difficult to accept the result of the field: at 69-75, with the inertia totally in the hands of the white and blues, instead Marchian errors arrived, which put the in Fidenza and reopened a race that in Ferrara it was enough to manage correctly to bring home. Drigo’s missed rebound, the three-point play granted to Markovic and Ballabio’s three turnovers in a row cry out for revenge, and unfortunately end up not giving credit to a team that up until then had done everything it had to do.
There is regret, in addition to the awareness of having missed a great opportunity even looking a little further: on the other side of the scoreboard, in fact, the very favorite Sangiorgese was defeated at home by Bergamo (62-67), and also it sees an uphill series that certainly saw it starting in pole position, despite the important absence of Bianchi. Let’s be clear, nothing is lost for Ferrara, but now coach Benedetto will have to be able to work on his team’s heads, because responding immediately to a blow of this type is not easy: on Thursday evening (8.45 pm) we return to the pitch at the Bondi Arena for game 2, and the biancazzurri will have to erase the mental waste of the epilogue of game 1, concentrating one game at a time and trying to force the series to game 3.
Jacopo Cavallini
