Havana, March 18 (RHC) - Cuban Marlon Yant played his best match of the season and led the Lube Civitanova to a 5-set win over Monza to keep his team alive in the playoffs of the Italian Superliga Volleyball League, the best in the world.

With 27 points, 23 of them in the attack and a very high efficiency average of 64 percent, Marlon deserved the distinction of Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the match, played at the Eurosuole Forum, in Civitanova.

He also contributed to the victory with three blocks and an acceptable 53 percent reception rate.

His performance, which brought the Lube 1-2 in the best-of-five series against Monza, was a great gift for his mother, former basketball player Gricel Herrera, who traveled in the last hours from Cuba to Italy to accompany her son in the playoffs.

The 22-year-old Cuban was assisted in the Lube's victory by Bulgaria's Aleksandar Nikolov (13 points) and Turkey's Adis Lagumdzija (12), while for Monza, Canada's Arthur Szwarc scored 25 points.

The fourth game of the series will be played on Sunday in Monza.

Meanwhile, Piacenza's star Robertlandy Simon took a 2-1 lead in the series against Milan, beating them from 3 sets down to two after a 2.5 hour battle on the court.

Two blocks by Simon were decisive in Piacenza's victory in the fourth set 31-29 to even the actions at two sets apiece, and in the tie-break Piacenza took the victory 15-12.

Simon contributed 13 points, with a remarkable 77 percent of effectiveness in attack, with 2 blocks and an ace.

The Cuban nationalized Brazilian Yoandy Leal was the top scorer for Piacenza (22 points), although the MVP was the left-handed world champion Yuri Romano (19), several of them in key moments.

In the other quarterfinal clashes Perugia and Trentino swept and already qualified to the semifinals.

Perugia defeated Verona in all three games and the leader of the preliminary campaign, Trentino, beat Modena by the same score.