Melendugno Women

A semifinal in the Coppa Italia Frecciarossa A2 is not the kind of thing a club from Melendugno was supposed to reach, and getting there took a run through the second tier that started with promotion out of Serie B1 in 2023, when the team beat Tenaglia Altino in the decisive third game of the play-off final. Two years earlier, the same group had gone up from Serie B2 the same way, through the play-offs.

The volleyball section grew out of Goleador Melendugno in 2014. Sponsors have changed the name on the shirt twice since — New Optics, then Narconon — but the club stayed on the same path, climbing one division at a time rather than buying its way up. Gaetano Prisco has run it as president through that stretch, and Simone Giunta now coaches a squad that plays a level above where it started barely more than a decade ago.

There is no major trophy yet on the shelf. What Melendugno has instead is a habit of finishing seasons in the right place: play-offs won, not just reached, in both promotions, and a Coppa Italia run in 2025/26 that took the club further than anything before it.

Home games are played across town in Lecce, at the Palasport San Giuseppe da Copertino, a ground that holds 1,510 and fills for the nights that matter to a small town watching its team compete two divisions above the beach volleyball courts and church squares it is better known for.