Serravalle, San Marino, June 10, 2018. The Sammarinese women’s national team claimed on Saturday top honours from the fourth edition of the ‘Memorial Paolo Benvenuti’, which took place on June 8 to 9, 2018 in Serravalle with participation of four teams. This year, the competition featured the national teams of San Marino and Luxembourg plus two sides from Italy’s B2 division, i.e. My Mec CERVIA and Clai IMOLA. Despite using their complete roster, and not exclusively the starting six, hosts San Marino quite comfortably claimed the ‘big final’ with CERVIA 3-1 (25-22, 25-10, 19-25, 25-20).
Samanta Giardi, Francesca Rosa and Giulia Tomassucci top scored for San Marino with nine points apiece. “We have been working together every day for two and a half weeks and this somehow made sure that we could find the right chemistry when contesting these matches, even though this was not quite self-evident,” said San Marino coach Luigi Morolli. “We tested quite many different things in this tournament, with all players enjoying some time on the court and I am extremely happy with what we did. All players did their job very well and am especially pleased with the performance of our young libero, Alice Petre-Paoloni.”
Luisa Gennari, the wife of the late Paolo Benvenuti, awarding Sammarinese captain Chiara Parenti
The ‘Red Lionesses’ from Luxembourg settled for third place after edging Clai IMOLA 3-1 (25-20, 25-19, 16-25, 25-23) in the bronze medal match.
The ‘Memorial Paolo Benvenuti’ pays tribute to the late Paolo Benvenuti, a man who was pivotal to the development of Volleyball in San Marino and prematurely passed away in 2014.