The Sammarinese Volleyball Federation hosted on Saturday the 10th edition of the Memorial ‘Alessandro ‘Cassa’ Casadei’, a competition named after the late setter and captain of their national team, who prematurely passed away in 2009. The tournament featured the men’s national team of San Marino, plus another two teams competing in the B and C divisions of the Italian league.
The competition followed a very specific rule, i.e. with at least three sets played per match and the team with the best match sets quotient emerging as the eventual winners. San Marino beat the team of Bellaria 2-1 after three close sets (25-23, 17-25, 25-21) before Morciano won three sets in a row against Bellaria (26-24, 26-24, 25-21). Later in the day, San Marino lost 0-3 to Morciano, a team from Italy’s B division, with the latter one taking top honours from the event.
“We finished the event in second place and it is fair so,” said San Marino head coach Stefano Mascetti. “We showed good Volleyball against Bellaria but we had some ‘blackouts’ in the matchup with Morciano. We were leading 18-16 in the first set when their setter went to serve and he literally ‘killed’ us moving the score all the way to the final 25-18. After losing one set that way, we found it difficult to regroup and our opponents took advantage of that. We used the third set to give an opportunity to younger players; two are under-16, Nicolas Venturi and Lorenzo Pancotti, while George Dobrescu is under-18. They all played very well and helped us stay in the match. After all, it was a good experience to spend some time together and start working on the team chemistry.”
CEV Small Countries Association 