(30/04/2002)
Riga ladies 2nd team entered their second season in division 3 in confident mood . The team had a great 1st season winning half their games so we were looking forward to the matches ahead . The squad was boosted by new arrivals Ana, Clare and Irene , maintaining the cosmopolitan nature of the team and enabling Sarah to do time outs in French , Spanish and Italian with the occasional word in English for the few Brits in the team . We bid farewell to Jane Kinnis who had made her mark on the team with the winning block against Norwich.
So, 13 registered players, a new receive on 3 and then things started to go downhill - before the season had started, the EVA decided to play us in div 3 west , meaning trips to Plymouth, Cardiff , the Scilly Isles, the Azores and Exeter. Lots of phone calls to the EVA persuaded then that Warwick Riga was no where near the west of the UK and so we found ourselves back in good old div 3 east. The first few matches were tough and it took the team a while to settle down with the new receive positions. Also, all the teams we regularly beat in our 1st season had dropped out of the league so , on paper, it looked like the team was going to be in for a hard season.
Injuries ( Steph doing both ankles in the same match !! ) , player absences plus a whole host of other issues meant that it took the team a while to record their first win but when it came, it was worth waiting for. The team achieved it's first ever victory against Brentwood and then took on top of the table Guildford who had panned us 3 -0 in out first game of the season . The Guildford game was easily our best of the year - we looked down and out at one point and then our team spirit kicked in big time. Irene scored 13 points on one serve, closely followed by Steph who won another straight 7 points and it was suddenly 13 all in the 5th set. Sarah's infamous back court spike was a clean winner but her foot was just over the line and the eagle eyed ref spotted it - so despite a great fight , we lost 3 -2 but everyone played so well.
In January, we then logged another 2 wins against Norwich with Ruth Gillett showing an awesome display of front court attacking and we put up a very spirited performance against promotion seeking Oxford. However, after that, life got very hard with the team throwing away victory against Chiltern by conceding a 2 -0 lead , losing 3-2 ( 15 - 13 in the 5th set again .....). The rest of the season wasn't much fun - we were stuck on 3 victories and our final games in April saw just 6 players available to go to Chelmsford with 6 other players away on holiday.
Ruthie did the pick up of the season against Oxford, got the ball back and then head butted the bench - mega commitment to the Riga cause. Some wacky results on the last day of the season meant that we finished 2nd from bottom - we had won 1 more set than Norwich who were propping up the league table all season.
We said "adios" to Tina, Sylvie and Nora but rumours abound of a Sally and Sharon comeback - both have been spotted at matches / team drinking sessions recently. So a tough season for this team - but often , the 2nd season is harder than the first ( just ask Ipswich Town supporters ). The team is determined to have a better 2002/03 and recent training sessions have been excellent with good commitment and a desire to get back into the winning habit. So our summer break is almost here and we're looking forward to entering some tournaments and then starting the next season with a strong return to form .
Sarah Halling