Italy’s winning streak continues

Italy went on the offensive from the start with excellent shooting from the perimeter and beyond the arc by Valentina Primossi as they quickly established the first significant lead of the match (15-5).

Slovenia weathered the storm and alternated their defence between a classic zone and player to player to come back in particular with Nika Baric and Tjasa Gortnar providing the offensive power as Italy’s advantage reduced to only two points at the end of the first period (20-18).

Italy opened the second period with a 7-0 run with an aggressive press and excellent finishing which they continued throughout the period to extend their advantage to 15 points at the interval (26-41).

After the break the pace slowed down and the game became more technical and it took an 11-0 burst by Italy towards the end of the period (58-34) that finally broke Slovenia’s resistance. The rest of the match was played out with Rota Marco turning his bench. Italy won (83-50).

The Italian’s coach, Marco Rota, had a few words to say after the game: “It was a tough game because we had an easy game yesterday and as a result we were a little bit lost in the beginning. We took time to find the right person to finish off some of our plays and we had a little bit of luck in the beginning but in the end I think we played the right defence which proved to be the difference between the two teams.
As for the rest of the competition we want to win against Finland tomorrow so that we start the qualifying round with maximum points as our objective is promotion to Division A and winning the tournament. But before then we have to keep our feet on the ground and take it day by day so tomorrow we focus on Finland and then we will see.”

 

 

Full statistics are available at here