Day 14, Group B – AN Brescia (ITA) v Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO) 14-10
Having kept the pole position for almost the entire season, Brescia would look foolish to let it go on the very last day – and the Italians did really well to keep the top spot.
They came up with their finest defensive efforts in the first half limiting Jug to two goals, including an almost 13-minute long shutout. Dordje Lazic netted another man-up early in the third and at 7-2 it looked way too easy. It wasn’t as the Croats stepped up, scored three extraman goals in a row but Stefano Luongo’s action shot was a great calmer for 8-5. The last 25 seconds were mind-blowing, saw three goals, two from Edoardo di Somma so the four-goal gap had been reset before the last break at 10-6.
Jug opened the fourth in style, after a killed man-down they netted two from action in 49 seconds to ‘reopen’ the game and at 11-9 they were still close but couldn’t reduce the gap to a single goal. Luongo netted his third and fourth goal in a minute to secure the win for his team and to make sure that the club’s legend, Christian Presciutti would bid farewell to the home crowd with a victory.
How they saw it
Alessandro Bovo, coach, Brescia
“This was an important result for us and also an emotional game, the last match for our captain. In the first part, we played really well in defence and in position play in attack, then we had some problems with the defence but the most important is that finished first.”
Vejkoslav Kobescak, coach, Jug
Regardless of the result, it was definitely a good game after losing the Croatian Championship. At some stages, we played really well, but unfortunately, we lost our captain during the game, not the best news before the finals. Anyway, the young players did well, this was great to see but at the same time there is no doubt that Brescia were better today.
Let’s hope we meet them in the final!”
