CASALE MONFERRATO. A two-sided game and a thriller ending give Novipiù Jb Monferrato a very precious victory, 70-61 against Urania Milano. First the escape, then the failure and again the extension. It is not a cycling race, but the plot of a match whose credits seem to run after just twenty minutes.
The Lombard defense was too ballerina, the Monferrato attack too brilliant. And so, after a first quarter with impressive numbers and a second interlude in which the Jb shows an enviable maturity, here is a decline that puts the wildcats back into the game when they don’t even believe it anymore. Martinoni and Formenti, for a long time perfect, catch their breath and the young people from Novipiù disappoint a bit, lowering their averages on free throw.
After having been ahead by even 19 points and having been picked up and overtaken by Urania, Casale has a great merit: knowing how to stretch, a few turns of the clock from the end, reacting to a physiological psychodrama and proving to be a solid team, more in the head that on the parquet.
And the Martinoni-Formenti duo has courage to spare. If the captain, top scorer of the race with 18 personal points, the result of a true pivot performance, has the merit of being constant and precise as a Swiss watch, the giant from Desio returns as a bomber from a distance as in the days of the old Junior, when the ID card was not electronic and marked 15 years younger.
Good times, but the present also has its charm. In all this, the returns of Okeke and Luca Valentini, fundamental in the Rossoblu rotations, as well as in the economy of the match, should not be forgotten.
The same will have to be in a few hours, facing a Udine winner of the Italian Cup and marching in full sail towards promotion to A. There there will be no room for lack of concentration or even for psychological bending. But there is time to think about the Friulians. The credits, albeit belatedly, say that Jb has won again.