VICENZA, Italy — Despite costumed revelers crowding the Caserma Ederle track for a Halloween celebration Friday night, there were no tricks across the way in the gym, where the Vicenza girls’ swept Naples in three sets at the DODEA Division II volleyball championships semifinals.

“We went back to basics,” said coach John Kohut, who said he stressed fundamentals — keeping elbows high, hitting with correct form — because he knew his girls were tired after two full days of competition.

The Cougars, who came into the tourney seeded second, had made the most of the day and managed to dodge a semifinals matchup against third-seed AOSR by taking two of three games from them in their first match of the day, then two of three from the Black Forest Academy.

Because of that, AOSR and BFA were left to square off in the other semifinal. And with games in three gyms all running late, their semifinal was pushed to Saturday morning.

The victory over the defending Division II champion Falcons avenged Vicenza’s two season-opening losses to the team from southwestern Germany.

“They won two and we finally won today,” Kohut said. “And then because of point (differential), we were able to be seeded first to play the four-seed (Naples).”

Kohut has felt the sting of a point differential going the other way, though, and he’s tried to harness that pain to fuel his team’s championship ambitions. He’s reminded his players ad nauseum of the loss of a three-way point differential tiebreaker with BFA and Aviano at the 2025 sectionals tournament that cost the Cougars a shot at the European championships.

A critical component of the Cougar’s victory over BFA on the court Friday was opposite hitter Alessandra Macy, who has developed into an offensive force for the Vicenza team.

Kohut credited her and outside hitter/setter Emily Bell with helping lead the team to the semifinals win over Naples, along with libero Audrey Martin, who he said has made good digs and put together long strings of solid serves in recent outings.

“Everybody else did their part,” he said. “A block here, block there, a dig here, there, placement hit, slap hit, putting it where it needs to be.”

The Cougars won the first set by double digits, but Naples managed to keep the score close early in the second set with an answer to most of Vicenza’s points.

With some well-placed hits, the Wildcats even managed to pull ahead for a bit before the Cougars rallied.

Having the familiarity of playing each other several times made the game about each team’s ability to hit the ball where the opponent was not, Kohut said.

“It was more about who’s got it, who’s doing it, who’s going to come out on top,” he said. “They’ve got two great players who can crank and everybody else can keep the ball live.”

After Naples began dropping the ball into the holes, Kohut made some adjustments, he said. That meant really slapping the ball, not just dinking it over.

“You really have to put it down,” he said. “You just can’t say, ‘Oh, let’s give it to them easy,’ and then they’re going to put it in our face.”

In the final set of the match, Naples took an early lead, but Vicenza pulled ahead 5-4 and mostly stayed ahead throughout the set.

The Wildcats did manage to close the gap to 16-14 at one point and later rallied to within two points again at 24-22 before finally giving Vicenza the match point on a serve out of bounds.

Vicenza has already faced AOSR five times and BFA three, Kohut said, but which one they see in the finals will depend on who’s putting the ball where it needs to be on that day.

If the Falcons of Germany win, the Cougars will have to recon with Priscilla Sivonen, who may be the best player in Europe.

But though BFA has beaten AOSR in three straight matchups, the scores have been tight. Either way, the semifinals will be the Falcons’ match to lose.

Whichever team wins, Kohut said he was hoping they’d be tired when they face off against the Cougars, who’ll also have the treat of home field advantage.