Juantorena and Giannelli leaded Italy to fourth victory in a row to mantein leadership and clean sheet in pool A

It seemed to be not that hard to predict the winner of this match, due to the fact that Italy won the first three games while Dominican Republic lost all of them.

Juantorena conducted his team mates with a "leading by example" style, scoring 17 points with four aces; Giannelli with a great distribution and Zaytsev with 12 points helped the team. Italy had a stunning 62% positive receptions and 11 serve points in just three sets.

Dominican Republic tried to resist with 12 points by Lopez and 8 by Tapia who played just a couple of periods.

At the beginning of the first period Dominican Republic fought hardly not to lose contact with Italy up to 4 each. Then a couple of blocks made the difference. Juantorena pushed Italy ahead with three aces (one “lucky”) from 13-8 to 19-8. In the italian field Gabriele Nelli and Gabriele Maruotti substituted respectively Simone Anzani and Osmany Juantorena for the back row turns and they showed good skills. Lanza and Zaytsev with blockouts and Mazzone with a fast attack gave Italy victory in the first period. Perfect point division for team Italy, four for each attacker and three for each midblocker, plus eight opponents errors.

In the second set once again Dominican Republic tried to resist as long as possible to the italian shots. They succeeded up to nine each when an amazing defense by libero Max Colaci was the sparkle for three blues points in a row. Some great caribbeans defenses too, in addition to many mistakes by the italian side, and unexpectedly they leaded 17-16. Italy woke up and a seven points rally on Mazzone turn of service up to 23-17 changed the destiny of the period. It came to an end with a spectacular pipe by Lanza and an opponents mistake.

Italy started the third period at an high rhythm. The very young dominican substitute setter Gonzalez (just turned 19 y.o. few days ago) tried to keep his team mates into the game, but Zaytsev scored the 9-4 with a terrific ace at 132 km/h. Little by ittle the gap became to big to be fitted. Maruotti substituted Lanza. Italy run away up to 19-9 with blocks and back row hits. Randazzo stepped in for Juantorena (standing ovation when he left the court). Giannelli stroke with a second touch attack for the 22-13. A Mazzone ace and a Randazzo shot down the line sealed the game and the match.

Source: www.fivb.org