The 2024-25 season opens as the previous one ended: with the success of Santarelli’s sextet over Vero Volley. And on Saturday 28 September it will be repeated in Rome for the Super Cup.
Gary Lineker loved to say: “Football is the sport where 22 players beat each other to death and in the end the Germans always win”. To paraphrase the former England centre-forward, women’s volleyball – at least at club level – is starting to resemble that sport where six players per team fight for five hard-fought sets and In the end Conegliano always wins. Santarelli’s Dream Team started from where it left off last season: by winning a trophy. And it did so at the expense of its usual – or almost usual – opponent in recent months, Vero Volley Milano. This time Moki De Gennaro and her teammates took home the Courmayeur Cup.
Courmayeur Cup, Chirichella’s decisive point
The friendly trophy, organized under the aegis of the Women’s Volleyball League, has put facing the four teams that should also excel this season: Conegliano, Milan, Novara and Scandicci. And the winner was the Venetian sextet, champion of Italy and Europe, who showed up in Valle d’Aosta with its battery of old and new stars. The old guard includes – precisely – Monica De Gennaro, the best libero on the planet. The new guard Gabi (26 points), Zhu Ting and Chirichella, the central player who scored the decisive point, the one that resolved a final that was as balanced as few others.
Exciting Finale, Egonu Is Not Enough: Santarelli Wins
Three to two for Prosecco Doc Imoco, then. At the end of a match that went through different phases. Milan, led by Paola Egonu (22 points for her), ran away in the early stages, winning the first set: 18-25. Conegliano grabbed parity in a sprint at the end of the second set (25-23), then Sylla and her teammates went back ahead (23-25). The Panthers reacted in the fourth set, won with an authoritative 25-17, and the last exciting set, with the Milanese team initially ahead by a couple of lengths, then ahead by a point in the decisive phases (12-13). At that point, however, the class, cynicism and experience of Conegliano, who won 15-13.
Saturday 28th September the Super Cup: Conegliano-Milan
In the final pthird place was won in three sets for Novara, Lorenzo Bernardi’s team, at the expense of Scandicci, the sextet where Kate Antropova plays: 25-23, 25-19, 25-17 the partial scores. Saturday 28 September, in the meantime, things will get serious. With an official tournament, this time: the Super Cup. And to compete for it – try to guess – will be Conegliano and Milan again. The first as the reigning Italian champion, the second as a finalist of the Italian Cup (obviously won by Conegliano). Appointment set for 6pm at PalaEur, for the umpteenth act of the challenge between the best friends, Moki De Gennaro against Paola Egonu.
Source: sport.virgilio.it
