| NVL Division One 17 January 2009 Venue: University of Bristol Riga 3 City of Bristol 0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-23) |
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Report written by Chris Anderson |
Another success over the weekend has seen Riga Men’s 1 take 3 wins on the trot since Christmas, with 2 of these coming in critical League matches. Following their win over Reading at home in the Cup, Riga travelled to Bristol on January 17 to play what has traditionally been one of the hardest encounters of the season, City of Bristol at there home venue. The sports hall is located three floors up in the University of Bristol’s Recreation Centre and it’s strange proportions (it’s round), poor lighting and perhaps the extra gravity at that height has always proved tough! Putting these challenges aside, Riga came out determined in the first set and despite a slow first few points managed to pull away following a good service run from Cedric. Riga were able to build on this pressure and continued to pull away and took the set 25-19. The second set wasn’t started at quite the same pace and Riga gave away 5 points, a much appreciated head start for Bristol. A time out from Coach Tom helped wake up the team and Riga re-entered the set as they should have started it. Kees was his usual force killing the ball effortlessly, ably assisted by setter Phil. Cedric and Dan were blocking well through the middle and had effectively nullified the Bristol middle attack, while Chris and Leo were laying the foundation with solid passing. Another strong service run, this time by Dan, was followed up by more excellent serves from John and the set was taken by Riga 25-17, a stunning reversal of the start of the set. Fatigue set in during the third set, understandable at that altitude, and Riga’s standard of play dropped. Points were traded with Bristol, with both teams fairly scrappy. This continued up until 22-23, when Kees stepped back to serve, having just admitted in a time out that he didn’t have the puff to play another set, and fired a brilliant serve that left only one attacking option. The ball was fed out to the aerial to Bristol’s best attacker who was immediately stuff blocked by Chris. 23 all saw exactly the same play from Bristol…with exactly the same result. Another stuff block by Chris on the Bristol attacker. Match point to Riga. Kees served again and Bristol popped the ball over, Riga recycled and Phil left the coup de grace to Kees who once again killed the ball effortlessly from the backcourt to seal the victory for Riga. MVP awarded to Kees, well deserved! |
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