Loeppky powers Lube into Italian league finals

For the third consecutive season, Steinbach’s Eric Loeppky will be playing in the Italian Superlega finals.

Loeppky was the key contributor for Cucine Lube Civitanova in their game four win over Rana Verona in the semi-finals, finishing with 15 points on 80 % efficiency with three aces.

“This is a wonderful moment for all of us,” Loeppky’s translated post-game comments posted to the Lube website reads.

“For the team, our families, the club, and of course, for our fans. We’ve worked so hard to reach this goal, and now I’m really excited to be playing in another Scudetto final in this jersey.”

Lube was able to punch their ticket to the finals despite finishing the regular season in sixth place in the top division standings. They also lost the first match of the best-of-five semi-final before storming back to win the next three.

“We struggled a lot this season to find the right consistency, but we never gave up and we did a good job of working hard on what could have made the difference in our favor,” Lube head coach Giampalo Medei said.

“In this semi-final, we reaped rewards we’d never managed to reap before. However, I want to emphasize this: It’s a relative satisfaction, as reaching a final means earning a chance. Now we’ll have the opportunity to rest a bit and then get back to work to give ourselves every chance we have.

Waiting for Lube in the finals are Perugia, which finished the season with a dominant 20-2 record in the league standings, 10 points ahead of second place Verona.

“Perugia is definitely a very tough team to face,” Loeppky said.

“We’ll have to focus exclusively on ourselves, and therefore on what we can do in our own half.”

Loeppky is hoping for some better luck in the final after losing to Perugia with Vero Volley in 2024 and Trentino with Lube last season.

Game one of the final will take place April 30. Game broadcasts are available in Canada through volleyballworld.com.