A good first for Akademia Città di Messina which, in its historic debut in Pool Promozione, gives another joy to the public of the “PalaRescifina”. Against Montecchio, coach Bonafede’s girls managed to gain the entire stake, but at the same time that confidence necessary to continue the journey, in the second and more complicated phase of the season, with the awareness of those who know they have already achieved a lot from the Championship and the Cup, but do not want to settle.
The team shows clear signs of growth, first of all in terms of the collective and the gaming system; the result is performances that are the result of the strong individualities present in the staff, but which coach Bonafede and his staff have managed, in recent months, to shape, allowing their full expression at the service of an increasingly cohesive group looking for the next step to gain.
Now, however, it will be necessary to continue to keep our attention high on the subsequent races and on opponents who are hard to give in and of greater caliber.
Meanwhile, success has arrived against Montecchio, a team capable of earning qualification for the Italian Cup at the end of an amazing first round and with which Akademia struggled slightly in the early stages of the match, and then closed the third and fourth sets with relative easetaking the right measures to the opponent and providing answers on the field without the possibility of a reply.
Best scorer of the match, Kelsie Payne with 24 points (20 in attack, with the amazing percentage of 50%, and 4 blocks). Following, Valeria Battista with 13 points (11 in attack, with a percentage of 41%, and 2 aces). The two power plants have 10 points Dalila Modestino (6 in attack, with 67%, and 4 blocks) e Melissa Martinelli (4 in attack, with 33%, and 6 blocks), MVP and Top Blocker of the match. With 7 points, Aurora Rossetto (5 in attack, with 38%, 1 block and 1 ace). With 1 point in attack, Jessica Joly And Giulia Galletti.
After an intense month of matches and emotions, the common denominator of them was having fought on equal terms with teams built to win the championship hands down: “In some situations we showed ourselves to be lucid – declares the spiker Jessica Joly – demonstrating that you can play with them too, in others a little less; it is clear that all this is part of a growth path that began in August.” Perhaps there remains regret for the outcome of the matches in Perugia in the Championship and Busto in the Cup, but also the need not to give up now: “Especially with Busto we knew we could give something more. At home they played an excellent match but we made a few mistakes on some aspects that we will need to work on further.” Jessica Joly has often proven herself capable of igniting and deciding the delicate phases of a meeting: “As I have already said several times, this is a journey that began in August, continually trying to grow and improve day after day. Even though there are times when it’s easy to lose clarity, maintaining high concentration is the aspect I’m trying to work on specifically.” Rereading the match with Montecchio, a victory arrived not without suffering in the first two sets; then, in the third and fourth there was no competition. A different match compared to those faced by Akademia so far: “We started a little tight, especially because it was a team we didn’t know; adapting to a new type of game was not immediate. There was, however, a strong reaction and this shows that we always manage to bring out the best in every situation, trying to implement what we do during the week.”