National League Division 1, 23rd November 2002, Speedwell v Warwick Riga
Speedwell 0 Warwick Riga 3 (21-25 16-25 22-25)
Warwick Riga had a convincing 3-0 (25-21, 25-10, 25-22) win against Speedwell in Bristol, which puts them in fourth place in the Men’s Division 1 of the national volleyball league. The match was the second away win of the season. In the overall standings Warwick Riga is now two points behind third placed Sheffield who will be visiting Warwick next Sunday (St. Nicholas Park, Sunday 1st December, 2pm).
In Saturday’s game Speedwell started better than the visitors from Warwick and held a small lead throughout the beginning of the first set. Riga reduced the difference towards the middle of the first set by eliminating the number of unforced errors from their game. Riga started to play better as a team and won a few important rallies through strong individual efforts from Tom Young and Mark Fearn. The set was won 25-21 through a particular difficult service by David Nason supported by good defensive efforts from Tom Young.
Riga had a blistering start in the second set and took a 5-0 lead with Phil Wyles on serve. Speedwell was unable to respond and the home team had used all their time-outs by the time the scoreboard showed 15-3 in Riga’s advantage. The Riga team remained alert throughout the set and showed some brilliant attacking combinations between Phil Wyles and John Gilling. A sustained difficult serve from Phil Wyles towards the end of the set produced a very comfortable win of the set (25-10).
Dan Showler started the third set for captain Tom Young. The substitution resulted in an uncertain start of the third set and Speedwell took a deserved four point advantage (9-13). A Riga time-out and three blocks from John Gilling and Tom Spijkers were required to pull the teams level again at 13-13. Both sides stepped up their game at this point, which resulted in long rallies and enjoyable viewing for the supporters. The score remained level until 21-21. At this stage Riga’s experience turned out to be decisive against the team from Bristol who are in their first year in the top flight of the national league. Riga did not make any more mistakes and finished the set through good defensive play and clinical finishing on the net.
Captain/coach Tom Young was afterwards very pleased with the result. ‘This is our fourth win in a row, including the cup win against Nottingham Rockets, and the ideal preparation for our next home game against Sheffield’ he said. ‘The next match will be important as a win against Sheffield on Sunday will take us into third place ‘. ‘The last few weeks we focused the training sessions on improving our performance as a team’ he added, ‘and on the basis of today’s response I can only say that the players have responded brilliantly.’
Tom Spijkers