On Saturday, the Coventry and Warwick Riga Women’s 1st Team, sponsored by Mooncup, continued their National Knockout Cup campaign with a home match against Division 2 team Brentwood Ladies.  With an integrated squad consisting of 1st and 2nd team players, head count on the score sheet reached ten for Riga.

A confident start saw strong serves from both Lisa Purcell and Anna Wojdala, leading into some tight play by Riga, and a scrappy response from Brentwood.    Both outside hitters put the pressure on with some hard hitting and jump serving pushing the score to 15-5 to Riga. Brentwood gained some confidence towards the end of the set making a substitution for their setter and clawing back some points.   This was too late and despite closing the gap to 23-16 the set was taken by Riga 25-16.

Riga’s service receive started slightly tentatively in the second set allowing Brentwood to sneak a 4-2 lead.  Thanks to some strong blocking by Michele Peryer and a great pipe hit from Celine Haederli the teams traded points and Riga levelled at 5-5. Strong serving from Brentwood and some unforced errors on Riga’s side caused them to drop behind at 9-12.  This small points deficit remained throughout the set with Brentwood raising their game, challenging Riga to find the floor as every hard driven ball was picked up.  Feeling the impending pressure of the end of the set, and after few carefully chosen words from coach Andy Collins at the timeout, Riga find some consistency meaning a cross-court pounding by Michaela Maixnerova brings the score to 24 all.  Unfortunately Riga couldn’t hold it, and a kill and tip from Brentwood finished off the set at 26-25.

Riga enter the 3rd set un-phased and ready repeat the success of the first set.  Some ace serving by Michaela and Celine forced Brentwood into a timeout at 7-2 behind.   This well taken timeout gained Brentwood the next point, but with some good defence under pressure, and the element of surprise with Ellie Beattie grounding a middle hit the lead was Riga’s to extend at 10-3.  With the team looking stable Andy was able to make the double substitution bringing on Emma Young setting and Clare Walsh hitting through 4, both making their debut for the Riga 1st team.  Despite some nerves Emma soon looked comfortable nailing a great set out to 4 for Celine to kill down the line.   Brentwood could not recover from the early lead established by Riga and the set was over at 25-12.