Sada Cruzeiro won the men’s Superleague for the ninth time, expanding its advantage as the largest national volleyball champion.
Now, the celestial team has two more titles than Minas Tennis Club.
This Sunday’s title (4) was won at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo, against Renata/ Campinas Volleyball, for 3 sets to 1, with the team leaving behind on the scoreboard. The partials were 18-25, 25-23, 25-23 and 25-21.
Cruzeiro’s last title of Superleague, the current world champion, had been won in the 2022/2023 season. Last year, the team was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Campinas himself.
The game
The match started hard for the miners, led by a tripod of Olympic champions in Rio-2016: the opposite Wallace, Central Lucão and the pointer Douglas Souza.
When the Paulistas, who had most of the 10,000 fans present in the gym, opened ten points ahead, coach Felipe Ferraz stirred. He put Vaccari, another player summoned by Brazil in recent years, in place of Douglas.
It was no use. The Campinas-the lifter Bruninho and the pointer Maurício Borges, gold medalists in Rio, as well as the opposite Bruno Lima, bronze by Argentina in Tokyo-2020-printed an impressive rhythm in the blockade, very easily stopping the opposing attack. At the end of the set, easy victory by 25-18 for the Paulistas.
The second set was more disputed. Cruzeiro improved its ball, and the Campinas team was more inconsistent at the reception, forcing Bruninho to lift high balls at the ends, easier to be marked by the opposing block.
Despite the Cruzeirense growth, Wallace had difficulty scoring. Therefore, he was exchanged for the young Oppenkoski, who secured the victory of the miners on 25-23.
The score was the same as the third partial, in which Campinas abused withdrawal errors.
The decisive partial began with an overwhelming cruise, soon opening three points of advantage, which rose to four, then six. Horácio Dileo, Campinas Technician, was astonished at the Minas Gerais defense system to irritate his attackers, who stopped scoring. However, unlike Ferraz, he made no changes to his team, which succumbed 25-21.
