Warwick Riga men stormed to very a convincing win against Speedwell, the bottom team in the English Division 1 Volleyball League. The away match in Bristol was shorter than any other match this season and lasted only 53 minutes & this included a slight delay in the official match start time!. This win keeps Riga in contention for the national championship alongside London Docklands and London Malory. The next home match will be played at St. Nicholas Park Leisure Centre on Saturday 21 February, start of match 5.30.

In last Saturdays match Speedwell started well and stayed in contention for the majority of the first set but towards the critical part of the set Riga pulled out a 3 point gap which was extended even further by some good tight play by the visitors to give the set to Riga 25 – 20.

Alex Radu: explosive jump serve scored many points

In the second and third set Speedwell were struggling with Riga’s service and in particular Alex Radu scored a large number of points with his excellent & explosive jump serve. Speedwell could not get the ball to their hitters whilst Riga were defending the free balls very well. Riga setter Phil Wyles was finding his big hitters Kees De Hoogh and Alex Radu very well, the middle attack was also running very smoothly which meant the home side were being pulled all over the net causing huge gaps for the Warwick team to exploit. Speedwell kept their motivation but never came back into either set following the Riga bombardment. Both sets were won 25-9 by Warwick Riga.

Coach Tom Young never thought that the match would be won that quickly. "We had some players at the National Student Championship but the team did very well and all players kept their concentration", he added, "I’m very pleased that for once we did not drift in and out the match and made very few mistakes throughout. Next weekend we play mid table Newcastle (Staffs) and after that we should be ready for the deciding matches of the championship against London Malory and London Docklands."