Sponsors of Riga ladies' first team

With a depleted post Christmas squad, Riga went to Cambridge to play in the third round on the cup. 

Riga started the match strongly, serving well and took a strong lead early on.  Cambridge, currently 2nd in Div 2 and looking like they'll easily win promotion, were not going to give up too easily though and fought back hard.  They too started serving harder and put Riga's passing unit under stress.  Riga gave up a few strings of points and the set started to look very close.  Riga encountered several serving errors which put Cambridge back in the match.  Celine Haederli hit a few key points in, but Cambridge managed to hang in and take the set 25-23.

With no substitutions available to Riga, the team were told they needed to sort it out and get on with things.  The team duly pulled their socks up, cut out the careless errors that cost the first set and began to enjoy the game.  Cambridge were a very good side to compete against, meaning there were some excellent rallies.  Riga enjoy playing good teams and usually manage to up their game accordingly.  This was no exception and Riga took the second and third sets 25-19. 

In the fourth set, with a large cambridge crowd now cheering loudly every point, the game was quite close.  But calm passing from Julie Bromell and neat setting from Lisa Purcell enabled Anna Meister and Alex Smith to convert points.  And solid blocking and good serving from middle players Sophie Louen and Michele Peryer also helped Riga to take the set and the place in the quarter final with a fourth set victory 25-21.

 

Riga will now face either Wolverhampton or Wessex in the Quarter final to be played the first weekend in February.