Italy comes out of the women’s Europeans in a really bad way. No trip to Ljubljana: from Tel Aviv the ticket detaches the Montenegro, who wins convincingly 49-63. On balance, it is one of the worst Italian performances in the continental tournament in recent history. Alone Olbis Andrè goes into double figures with 10 points; from top 17 of Milica Jovanovic15 of Marija Lekovic and 13 with 15 rebounds by Natasha Mack. For the Montenegrins there is now France, the blues of Linen Lard they also say goodbye to the road to the Olympics.
The first few minutes essentially see a challenge within the challenge: Jovanovic against all of Italy. The Montenegrin shooter riddles the blue basket over and over again, and worse still she is often left free to do. Soon, however, the rest of Montenegro also wakes up, while Italy, after 8-8, suffers an incredible and incomprehensible partial. 0-14 means 8-22, which is the final score of the first quarter with the blue basket becoming more closed than a cap.
The part of the Balkans continues, and reaches disturbing peaks: 0-18, 8-26. Lekovic also becomes important in this moment of the match, but it is Jovanovic who makes everything even more complicated with three: 8-29. Bestagno finally scores, and this puts Italy back in motion, which finds a 0-10 offset also thanks to the personality of Matilde Villa, who had already tried to give energy during the opponent’s break. The gap, however, never manages to return below 11 lengths of delay, but it never even exceeds 13. Result: 22-35 at halftime.
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The start of the third period didn’t particularly help to reassure the situation, with Mack and Zivkovic not allowing Italy to get back under double digits. The blue attack continues to suffer a lot even when it is the Montenegrin one that can no longer find the flames in the first quarter. The score remained stuck at 29-41 for three minutes, then Vucetic and Lekotic woke up and it was night for the blue team: 10′ from the end it was 31-48.
Back on the court, Montenegro stretches again, flying to 32-51 with a triple from Jovanovic. There is substantially no reaction from the blue front except for Pan, who is tempted by something, but in fact she is alone. The opponents control without even the shadow of a problem, they leave no room for rapprochement and they close by celebrating their return to the top eight after 8 years.
ITALIA-MONTENEGRO 62-74
ITALY: Keys*, Villa 4, Bestagno 4, Verona 4, Zandalasini* 6, Pan 7, Trucco ne, Cubaj 2, Santucci* 8, Fassina ne, Andrè* 10, Spreafico* 4. All. Lardo
MONTENEGRO: Mack* 13, Kovacevic, Zivaljevic, Pasic, Radonjic 1, Zivkovic* 5, Mujovic+ 4, Bigovic, Vucetic* 8, Scepanovic, Lekovic 15, Jovanovic* 17. All. Skerovic
Credit: Ciamillo