Mediterranean Games Men's Volleyaball: Italy downs host-Spain for Gold

The Mediterranean Games, a collection of nations to compete in a myriad of sports including volleyball, is starting in 2018 as opposed to its normal four-year cycle of 2009, 2013, 2017 after the host needed to push it back a tad. For men’s volleyball, pool play has now come to a close as we head to the placement matches to determine the final order.

In total, there were four different pools, each consisting of a trio of teams. Following a quick round-robin, the lowest ranked team in each pool was eliminated with the top two moving on to the quarterfinals. After that, we moved on to the semifinals for both the winners bracket and the 5th-8th place classification with the placement matches yesterday and the championships finishing up today.

Italy defended their Mediterranean Games championship with yet another, as Spain could not give the home crowd one final celebration. In fact, this was a re-run of the 2009 Finals in the event that Italy also won, as this gives them back-to-back-to-back titles.

Italy was much more aggressive throughout the match, which led to 10 more team errors, but they played the line well of being ultra-aggressive without being reckless. That’s because they dealt with a few more errors in each set knowing that if it didn’t get out of control, it was leading to a better spike (63-50 in kills), block (14-7 in team blocks) and serve (7-6 in aces).

Leading the way for the Italians Gold medal effort was Sebastiano Milan (27 points), as he has all tournament. He was supported well by Giacomo Raffaelli (19 points) along with two others in double figures. In the losing effort for Spain, Andres Villena (24 points) spearheaded the attack, but besides Jorge Fernandez (12 points), no other player logged more than eight points.

For Italy, this is also their seventh Mediterranean Games championship overall (more than any other nation in the field). For Spain it’s their fourth Silver medal, which ties them with Turkey for most in that regard.

Source: https://volleymob.com/mediterranean-games-mens-volleyball-italy-downs-host-spain-for-gold/