Fabo Herons Montecatini beats Luiss Roma 84-75 and enters the playoffs

FABO HERONS MCT

84

LUISS ROME

75

MONTECATINI Trapani 4, Kupstas 7, Chiera 5, Arrigoni 18, Sgobba 18, Dell'Uomo 13, Natali 7, Paesano 7, Benites 5, Giannozzi no, Aminti no, Rattazzi no. Coach Barsotti

ROME Villa 7, Bottelli 10, Fallucca 5, Cucci 19, Salvioni 4, Pasqualin 11, Van Ounsem 7, Ferrara 4, Pugliatti 3, Rocchi 3, Jovovic 2. Coach Paccariè

REFEREES Andretta and Corrias

Partial notes 21-19, 45-36, 64-59

LUCCA

Fabo Herons Montecatini takes it all: coach Federico Barsotti's men defeat Luiss Roma 84-75, move away from seventh place and even, thanks to the results achieved on other fields, enter the playoffs with the number 4 seed, which will give the Barsotti boys the advantage of the field in the first round. Avoiding the Roseto draw, moreover. Luiss Roma ends up in the play-in hell, with its fourth consecutive defeat. Fabo instead will face Omegna in the quarterfinals, fifth in the other group.

At the 4-0 Herons at the start Cucci responds, taking Sgobba to school on a couple of occasions. After the exchange between Kupstas and Bottelli, the mini-break of 5-0 inspired by Fallucca allows the guests to take a two-possession advantage, immediately cancelled out by Chiera and Arrigoni's layup. Pasqualin enters the game but Fabo stays ahead thanks to the points brought by Kupstas and Dell'Uomo. Jovovic has other ideas, unfortunately his aim with the clock stopped is deficient. The Herons take advantage of this by increasing their profits at the dawn of the second quarter: Benites and an inspired Kupstas increase the rossoblù advantage to +10 (29-19). The lifelines of the Capitoline team are called Cucci and Bottelli. Bloody 0/2 by Chiera on free throws after Pasqualin's unsportsmanlike foul, Arrigoni makes up for it on the next possession but between errors from underneath and turnovers (6 in the second period alone) the locals risk squandering a "little treasure" of 11 points. If it doesn't happen, it's thanks to two well-constructed triples made by Sgobba, and it's always the 33 with a 2/2 from the free throw line to set the partial score of the initial 20 minutes at 45-36.

Only one basket in the first 120 seconds of the third quarter, and it's not rossoblù: Bottelli and Pasqualin bring Luiss back into contact. The intensity of the defenses and contacts soars, with the university players exhausting their bonus before halfway through the period. The "herons" don't take much advantage of it, but thanks to 5 consecutive points by Natali they still manage to get back to +10. The gap is halved by Villa's forays. Pugliatti's triple at the dawn of the last quarter isn't a great omen, the quintet without big men launched by Barsotti struggles and then Sgobba returns, after Rome had even put its nose ahead thanks to Rocchi. The difference is clear when Arrigoni also returns to the parquet: riding the streak of his two big men, Fabo brings the match back on the most congenial tracks and the many offensive rebounds don't translate into points for the Capitoline team. And so the party can begin at PalaTagliate, like in the golden days.

Filippo Palazzoni