Riga men’s first division team played their best game of the season so far to beat Newcastle Staffs 3-1 in last Saturday’s match at Keele University. Newcastle were supported by a large and noisy home crowd but Riga remained completely focused on their task, rising to the occasion to play a very good match.

Matt Howe: injured in warm up

The day did not start very well when libero ( backcourt specialist ) Matt Howe twisted his ankle during the warm-up and could not take any further part in the game. With no alternatives available coach Tom Young decided to take over the libero role himself. In the first set Riga established a small lead early on which they extended to four points towards the middle of the set. Newcastle fought extremely hard but were unable to close the gap mainly due to a strong Riga block and strong defence. The set was comfortably won by Riga 25-18.

In the second set the Warwick team seemed to fall back into the old habit of relaxing too much and handing the initiative back to their opponents. Newcastle took full advantage of this lapse with difficult serving and good strong blocks which enabled them to quickly run up a lead of 7-1. A time out from coach Tom Young was required to wake the Riga side up and the effect was immediate with no more sequences of points being given away. Towards the middle of the set Newcastle were still leading 18-11 and the Riga boys didn’t look like making much progress at this juncture. However the set turned Riga’s way when the home team started making some unforced errors brought on by the increasing pressure being applied by the Warwick boys & within a matter of minutes Newcastle’s 7 point cushion had gone allowing the visitors to push ahead & secure the set with a huge hit from Canadian, Andy Lynn.

Andy Lynn: huge hit to finish 2nd set

The third set was very close with Riga always trailing by two or three points for most of the set. Both teams were playing extremely well at this stage and a number of long rallies made the match very attractive to watch for the spectators. The home support worked well in this set and helped lift Newcastle to secure a very close set 25–22 which their good play thoroughly deserved.

The fourth set showed the same high level of play and both teams were making very few mistakes. The sides were within one point of each other throughout the set until Phil Wyles came to serve at 16-17. Newcastle struggled to cope with his variation of touch & power from the service line and the gap quickly increased to 22–16 in Riga’s favour. The next server for Riga, Kees de Hoogh, maintained the pressure with another few difficult serves coupled with some excellent all round team play and Riga took the set and match with a convincing 25–17 set victory.

Coach Tom Young was delighted with this win as he felt that the hard work in training over the last two months finally started to show some positive results. "We’ve worked hard on our block and defence and in this match it all seemed to come together," he said afterwards, "but the biggest improvement is that we played very well as a team and where normally individual mistakes tend to disrupt our game, today we dealt better with those and carried on with our game."

The next match will be away in the KO-cup against Thames Valley Jets on the 8 November. The next two games in the National League will be at home against London Docklands (15 November) and London Malory (22 November). These were the only two teams above Riga at the end of last season so everyone in the squad is looking forward to the matches. Riga are unbeaten in the current season and these matches will be crucial for the overall rankings in the volleyball league.