Marina Centrone's Italian National Team lost their second straight game in the second phase of the 2016 World Softball Championship to a strong Venezuela, and now only holds the slimmest of hopes to advance to the third and final phase. To move forward Italy has to win their game tomorrow against host Canada, while also seeing Canada beat Puerto Rico today, and Venezuela top Puerto Rico tomorrow, and then have their runs differential tie breaker (currently -9) come out ahead of both Canada (-5) and Puerto Rico (+4).
Venezuela came up with two huge hits in their 5-0 victory, as Pimentel hit a two run homerun in the second, and Alicart added another two run homer in the sixth, both against Italian starter Cecchetti. Italy, while matching Venezuela's 8 hits, and only striking out twice, could not push any of their nine baserunners across home, and remained scoreless in the second phase after dropping the opener 4-0 to Puerto Rico.
Piancastelli and Grifagno each had two hits for Italy.
