In an impressive show of force, defending champions Valletta San Antonio won their 4th Men’s First Division National League Cup as they swept aside the challenge of Aloysians Defenders.

It took Valletta 67 minutes to emerge victorious with a 3-0 (25-23, 25-11, 25-20) score in this deciding game that was played in front of a sizeable crowd at the Cottonera Sports Complex.

The defending champions started off badly, committing unforced errors in reception and attack while looking static in defence, handing a comfortable 5-1 lead to Aloysians in the first set, but they reduced their advantage by two points to go in 8-6 down at the first technical timeout.

Owen Spiteri tried to get his attackers in the best spiking position, but Valletta’s reception left much to be desired and Aloysians piled on the pressure on the City rearguard as they took the opportunity to punish Valletta with well placed spikes down the line and superior blocking.

This trend continued till the score was 21-14 in Aloysians’ favour when Valletta finally got their game in order with Paul Tonna causing havoc in his opponent’s reception, as Aloysians started struggling against the high block of Dalton Caruana, Jonathan Chetcuti, Robert Balzan and Cedric Bondin.

Josef Pirotta came in for Spiteri, and with libero Goffredo  Guazzoni picking up some important balls in defence, the Reds kept pressuring their opponents to level the score at 22-22 until Tonna, Balzan and Caruana dealt the final blows in attack and block to win the first set 25-23.

With Aloysians stunned by Valletta’s spectacular comeback in the first set, the Citizens wasted no time to take a 6-0 advantage off Pirotta’s service in the beginning of the second set. Valletta settled into their usual game rhythm winning point after point to stretch their lead to 16-4 by the second technical time-out.

Player coach Jonathan Chetcuti opted to keep piling on the pressure on Aloysians, bringing in Karl Meilaq Brunetti and Spiteri to maintain three attackers at the net. Valletta dropped three points on Louis Scriha’s jump serve, but with Vince Pace coming in to stabilise the reception alongside Guazzoni, Valletta cruised to 25-11 victory in the third set. 

Valletta were on a high and could sense that they were on their way to winning yet another League Cup, but they were also aware that only a few weeks ago Aloysians had squandered an identical 2-0 set score in their favour against the same Valletta.

Aloysians, in fact, kept the pace with their opponents until the first technical timeout, trailing 8-5, but the Champions moved up a gear to stretch their lead to 16-10 with Caruana playing a blinder in the middle while Balzan, Tonna and Bondin kept hauling in the points from their outside hitting positions.

Once again Chetcuti opted for a double substitution, bringing in Meilaq Brunetti at the net and Pirotta in the back row while Pace came in for Balzan at the end of the set. Reuben Vella also left his mark in this final set as Valletta extended their lead to 20-14, until the game went on point by point before Tonna sealed the match with a sharp cross court spike in the three-metre area that kicked off his team’s celebrations.

This was Valletta’s fourth official success this season after winning the John Bugeja pre-season Cup, the Super Cup and the Fr Tony Parnis National Cup earlier in the season while the club has also won all these four competitions for the past four years.

Speaking after the final whistle, Jonathan Chetcuti, Valletta’s player-coach added: “All the players realised that this year we needed to do something more than we had done in previous seasons. After our dismal start we planned out our training sessions and our training camp in Milan in a way that would put everyone in the best shape possible for the season finale. Every member of our team played an important role during training and in all games to enable Valletta to win all the titles once again.”