T&T's Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore's SL Ben­fi­ca served off the sec­ond stage of the Por­tu­gal Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Men's Hon­da A-1 Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­onship with a straight-sets win over AA Es­pin­ho on Sat­ur­day.

Hav­ing com­plet­ed the 14-club round-robin phase of the com­pe­ti­tion with e per­fect 13-0 record, nine-time do­mes­tic league cham­pi­ons Ben­fi­ca swept past AA Es­pin­ho 25-19, 25-17, 25-19 at the Ben­fi­ca Sports Hall in Lis­bon for an ear­ly share of the ta­ble lead on three points with Sport­ing CP, whom they de­feat­ed in five sets for the Por­tu­gal Vol­ley­ball Su­per Cup ear­li­er this sea­son.

AJF Bas­tar­do and Leixoes both won their open­ers as well for two points each.

Up next for Ben­fi­ca, who will have to cope with­out the ser­vices of the 37-year-old mid­dle-block­er Hon­ore for the rest of the sea­son due to a dis­lo­cat­ed shoul­der in­jury, is a clash with SC Es­pin­ho in De­cem­ber 18, then one day lat­er they come up against Caste­lo Ma­ia.

At the end of the two rounds of the Big-Eight, the top four teams will qual­i­fy to the play­offs for the ti­tle.

SL Ben­fi­ca, the reign­ing two-time Por­tu­gal cham­pi­on is al­so in­volved in the pres­ti­gious Con­fed­er­a­tion of Eu­ro­pean Vol­ley­ball (CEV) Men's Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­ons League and is sched­uled to play their sec­ond match in Pool D on Wednes­day at home to Ger­many's Berlin Re­cy­cling Vol­leys.

When the group stages served off on De­cem­ber 1, Ben­fi­ca went un­der to Rus­sia's Zenith St Pe­ters­burgh, 19-25, 16-25, 23-25 Berlin Re­cy­cling Vol­leys de­feat­ed Ser­bias' Vo­jvo­d­i­na Seme Novi Sad 26-24, 25-16, 25-21.

Ben­fi­ca will then re­sume their Cham­pi­ons League cam­paign on Jan­u­ary 12, 2022, at home to Ser­bian club Vo­jvo­d­i­na Seme Novi Sad and then on the road against Ger­many's Berlin Re­cy­cling Vol­leys on Jan­u­ary 26.

They will then close out group play ver­sus Zen­it on Feb­ru­ary 8, 2022, and the Ser­bians on Feb­ru­ary 16.

Hon­ore start­ed the sea­son in good form for Ben­fi­ca but suf­fered a shoul­der dis­lo­ca­tion dur­ing his club's open­ing CEV qual­i­fy­ing match ver­sus Baltic cham­pi­ons Big­bank Tarur on Oc­to­ber 6.

Since then the T&T stand-out who has al­so played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Ger­many and Brazil, had suc­cess­ful surgery on the right shoul­der and will be im­mo­bi­lized for the next five weeks af­ter which he will have to un­der­go four to five months of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

<Jack-Kisal's Megabox strug­gles con­tin­ue in Italy>

T&T mid­dle-block­er Sinead Jack-Kisal and her Megabox On­du­lati Del Savio Valle­foglia team start­ed bright­ly be­fore fad­ing in a straight-sets loss, their fifth by that mar­gin in the Ital­ian Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion 2021/2022 La Pallavo­lo Women's Cham­pi­onship Se­rie A-1 on Sat­ur­day.

Com­ing up against third-placed Savi­no Del Bene Scan­dic­ci (8-3), Megabox fell 21-25, 16-25, 14-25 at the Palazzet­to Del­lo Sport Al­ber­to Carneroli, Urbino.

For Scan­dic­ci, Ma­ri­na Lu­bian had a match-high 13 points while Louisa Lipp­mann and Ele­na Pietri­ni added ten each, and Ana Beat­riz Sil­va, nine.

Team cap­tain Ta­tiana Koshel­e­va was the lone Megabox play­er to score in dou­ble-dig­its with ten points while 28-year-old for­mer Rus­sia and Turkey-based Jack-Kisal got nine, Ana Bjel­i­ca sev­en and Son­ja New­combe, six, in the loss, their eight from 11 match­es for a 3-8 win-loss record, the same record as Vol­ley­ball Berg­amo, and Ac­qua & Sapone Ro­ma Vol­ley­ball Club for nine, nine and eight points re­spec­tive­ly.

The trio are just above the bot­tom two clubs on the 14-club stand­ings in Bar­toc­ci­ni Fort­in­fis­si (2-8) and Delta Despar Trenti­no (1-0) who have sev­en and six points re­spec­tive­ly

The top T&T women's play­er and her team will re­turn to ac­tion on De­cem­ber 18, against Mon­za (7-3) on De­cem­ber 18, be­fore meet­ing 11th-placed Ro­ma on De­cem­ber 26, Box­ing Day to close out the year.

The league will then re­sume on Jan­u­ary 9, 2022.