Panathinaikos has sealed the Volley League title and completed its first double in over four decades after beating PAOK at Thessaloniki on Saturday night.
The Greens clinched their 22nd championship title in Greece, a couple of months after also winning the Greek Cup, through their 3-1 win in the playoff final series with PAOK.
The Thessaloniki club had reached the best-of-five finals eliminating regular-season runner-up Milon in five games (3-2).
However it came up against a very strong Panathinaikos that had swept its eternal rival, Olympiakos, in the other semifinal series, in just three games.
The finals started with the Greens enjoying home advantage, and they won Game 1 with a 3-1 score in Athens. PAOK responded a week later with a 3-0 triumph in Game 2 in Thessaloniki.
The most dramatic game of the series was the third one, that took place in Athens last Monday. PAOK went ahead 2-1, but Panathinaikos – boosted by the capacity crowd at the court of Mets – came back to win the tie-break 16-14 and the match with a 3-2 result.
That meant a victory for the Greens in Game 4 on Saturday, at the PAOK Sports Arena, would give them the title, and so it happened: The players of coach Dimitris Andreopoulos won 3-1 to celebrate the title on the road.
They had Ukrainian Dmytro Yanchuk as their best player and top scorer with 25 points on the night, while Giorgos Papalexiou covered efficiently the gap from the injury of US central blocker Patrick Gasman.
The result sealed a back-to-back triumph in the Volley League for Panathinaikos, following the 2025 title.