NVL Division 1
28 September 2008
Venue: University of Reading Sports Hall
Riga 3 Reading 0 (25-17, 25-14, 25-14)

Report written by Dan Turnbull

Riga found themselves in a somewhat unfamiliar situation of having to wait for the home to turn up on Sunday.  With the ‘official’ warm up having started, sat the other side of a half set-up net/ sports hall were 3 of the home team players wondering exactly where the rest of the Reading squad actually were.  The whole situation was made to seem more farcical when after the game we discovered that the majority of players actually lived on campus.  Eventually they slowly filtered in and we were able to start.

With the start time being moved back 20 minutes, Riga were in no mood to hang around even more and quickly opened up a 5-0 lead thanks to the blocking of Dan Turnbull and some impressive hitting from Kees de Hoogh.  Riga dominated in all areas and even libero Leo Trench got in on the point scoring act when he made a diving pickup that both teams just stood and watched sail up into the air, over the net and land inside the 3 metre line at position 4.  With a comfortable lead and the set all but won, it was only a number of serving errors from Riga at the tail of end of the set that made the set score more respectable.  Riga winning the set 25-17.

Riga’s dominance continued into the second set, where they once again opened up a sizable early lead.  Riga had found there range from the service line with aces from Phil Wyles and Piotr Rybarczyk.  While Reading struggled to get the ball even past the de Hoogh block, Riga’s outside players Rybarczyk and Chris Anderson were killing the ball with ease.  In next to now time Riga took the second set 25-14.

With the opportunity of a 3-0 win in under an hour, Riga looked to finish the match in double quick time.  In an attempt to get themselves back into the match Reading had shuffled there starting line-up but still could find no answers.  Once again Riga dominated and soon took the match with another 25-14 set win.

With a free weekend next week, Riga now have 2 weeks to prepare for a double header weekend.  Riga face London Docklands at Alan Higgs, Coventry on Saturday 11th October before travelling down to London the following day to take on London Lynx.

MVP was awarded to Kees de Hoogh