Report written by Chris Jones

This weekend Riga men’s 2nd team travelled to Moulton to play Milton Keynes in a single header.  When we all met up at Alan Higgs we soon realised we were already in unfamiliar territory as we had that many players we had to take 3 cars…!!

We arrived in Moulton with plenty of time and the squad were soon warming up before the proper start time keen to get started.  Due to the departure of our Dutch import Rene we were playing with a new rotation, seeing our setter playing through the middle – was it a stroke of genius or insanity from coach Alex?!?  We would soon find out.

We all lined up on court with our two new players, Hayden and Tim both being trusted with starting places and having won serve Steve promptly jump served straight into the net!!  After the less than amazing start the team soon rallied together and were trading points with Milton Keynes and after a good run of serves from Peter were 7:13 up.  Some good hitting from Tom through four and with Pawel being brought on for Hayden, who had done a fantastic job through reverse, Pawel added to the fire power and saw Riga increase their lead. Riga soon found themselves at set point and Peter served out the set to 15.

The second set started with Bart setting instead of Steve and Riga were soon trading points with Milton Keynes, who had picked their game up somewhat after the first set but Riga were determined not to let them spoil the party.  Bart was keeping Milton Keynes guessing was some faster sets and new boy Tim was making some good kills through both reverse and four.  Some good back court cover combined with solid blocking meant Milton Keynes were finding it hard to score many points and were forced into making a few errors.  With some good hitting from Chris through four, Riga found themselves in the lead again and we served the set out to 21.

Two sets up Riga were determined not to get complacent and wanted to get things wrapped up in 3 and get back on the road.  The set started with both teams making a few unforced errors and after Riga scrambled the ball back over the net and landed it within millimetres of the side line at Milton Keynes' setter's feet, his “comments” saw himself earn a yellow card much to the delight of his team mates!  The next point then saw more fireworks, again for reasons unknown one of the Milton Keynes players soon found himself facing another yellow after “discussing” things with the referee.  All these antics did somewhat throw Riga off their stride and they found themselves trailing Milton Keynes by a few points, a few strategic substitutions by coach Alex and the use of Pete as libero was not enough and Riga sadly went down 25:22.

Hopefully the start of the 4th set would see an element of calm restored to the court and match.  This was not to be the case, with Tom Young finding himself the proud owner of a yellow card, which was issued rather strangely when he was apologising to the ref for getting a bit feisty!!  Riga were soon trading points with Milton Keynes all the way up to 11 all and then a major lapse in concentration from Riga saw them have a couple of runs of serves against them and as quick as the 4th set had started it was over and Riga slightly stunned walked off having gone down 25:13.  It was going to be a 5th set crowd pleaser!!

The 5th set saw a change of ends to begin with and Steve starting serving again, perhaps wisely he opted for a slightly less risky float serve unlike the first set jumper!!!  Riga were still slightly stunned from seeing a 2:0 lead diminished but managed to pull together as a squad and with Pete providing some solid passing back court, the team were only trailing Milton Keynes by a point at the change.  Step forward Peter serving again and a run of 4 serves combined with good setting by Steve mixing the attacks very well to keep Milton Keynes guessing soon saw Riga with their noses in front.  Two great blocks from Chris and Pawel saw Riga with their first match point, to which Milton Keynes response was to call a time out.  But Tim kept his cool in his debut and served a great serve and Riga wrapped the match up 15:12!

Well done to everyone for a great performance in at least 3 of the 5 sets!!  And well done too our two new squad members, one of which got MVP – well done Hayden!