Second in the regular season, Nice was defeated at Maxéville Nancy (3-1) in the return quarter-final of the BM League, and will have to go through a tiebreaker match. Tourcoing, Harnes, and Orange have qualified.
With the playoffs, a new championship begins. And the Niçois are well-positioned to talk about it. Second in the regular season, the Azuréens have been struggling since the start of the finals.
Victorious by a narrow margin in the first leg, Mladen Kasic’s team gave in on the field of Maxéville Nancy (25-13, 26-24, 27-29, 25-21), under the blows of an unleashed duo, Florin Balhaceanu (21 points) and Jakub Lomacsz (19 points). Everything will be decided on Saturday in Nice during the tiebreaker match. And the confidence may have shifted sides.
In the other three quarter-finals, the outcome is known. Harnes, winner over Canteleu-Maromme (3-0), and Tourcoing, who won at Asnières without conceding a single set (0-3), will meet in the semi-final for a Nord-Pas-de-Calais derby. Orange, who won in a tie-break in the first leg, repeated the feat at Plessis-Robinson (2-3) in the wake of Jaromir Kolacny (24 points). Cruel for the Parisians…
