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Warwick Riga Ladies 2nd team ventured down the M1 to Ashcombe's new
purpose built sports hall. Very impressive it is too, with room for two
National League matches to be played side by side and with the ability to
use the hall for 4 courts for training purposes. Maybe Riga were a bit
overawed by this - or possibly the 1st division game being played on the
adjoining court but what ever it was they made the worst start in living
memory and hardly troubled the scorers as Ashcombe cruised through the
first set 25-10. |
| The good thing about set 2 was that
it could not possibly get any worse, and fortunately it didn't. The girls
started to attack at the net and this was the key as in some stages of the
game they out-scored Ashcombe. At 18-18 the Ashcombe coach called an anxious
time-out and this did the job for them as they took the set 25-22. |
| Set 3 and Riga continued the
improvements made in Set 2, Ruth Gillett started to dominate the net in the
way only Ruth can with a dazzling display of blocking and more handbag shots
than there are in the manual helped the team through to a good lead. By
now the Riga offence was starting to buzz and Clare and Virginia were
finding the hitters with increasing regularity, this was the key to the game
- whoever hit best at the net would win. Despite frantic substitutions and
time-outs from the Ashcombe coach they could not stop the Riga express and
the girls took the set 25-21. |
 Clare digs
forward to Virginia as Ruth waits
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Set 4 started the same way that Set 3 had ended, and for a while it looked
like a real upset could be on the cards. Unfortunately for Riga the
experienced players on the Ashcombe team started to control the play and
they eventually took the set (and the game) relatively easily at 25-16. So
a loss, but at least pride had been restored by the winning of the crucial
(for League position) set from a team looking for promotion so coach Sarah
Halling was not too downbeat and forecast better things for the next game. |
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So it was a reasonably happy team that took the court for the second game of
the afternoon, the opposition this time being Chiltern. Maybe it was the
fact that the girls were all well warmed up but they kept on doing the good
things that they had been doing earlier (and a few less of the bad things)
and before you knew it the first set was in the bag at 25-19. |
 Sarah, Ana
and Ruth in back-court
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The second set and Ana and Nora were taking
pot-shots at the Chiltern defence from position 4, with Clare distributing
the ball well. The Chiltern coach, went through his time-outs, substitutions
etc. in an effort to stem the tide, but to no avail and Riga got the 2nd set
by the same score line 25-19. A confident Riga took the court in Set 3 but
it was the age old story of believing the game was already won and Chiltern
came back too strongly to take the set 25-20. |
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You had to wonder if the chance had been lost, Riga were starting to look
increasingly frail at the back, and the first pass started to go awry,
Chiltern however did not let up and turned the screws on an increasingly
disillusioned Riga side. |
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So a 5th set beckoned, this was now the 9th set Riga had played in a row
and if the legs were tired it wasn't showing. Initially going down 4-0 the
girls clawed their way back into it until at 13-13 all depended on who
could serve in - the pressure really got to all the players and there were
serving errors from both sides. Finally Chiltern got one ahead and a
frantic scramble from Riga on the next just failed to return the ball and
Chiltern got the nod 17-15. |
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You had to feel for them, in over 20 years volleyball I don't think I've
ever seen a team so gutted by a result. Still it was a good (if cruel)
learning experience and hopefully one they remember in the future when more
may depend on the outcome. Also it was an improvement at 1-3 and 2-3 on the
0-3 and 1-3 results against the same opposition earlier in the season. |
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So, little reward for a hard-days work. The girls were certainly unlucky
- if they had played Chiltern first the result may have been very
different. A lot certainly depends on fitness when you have to play these
triangular matches - as the Men's 2nd team will find out next year when
they re-enter the National Leagues - so the girls will expecting a lot
more fitness drills on Tuesday nights from now on. |
More photographs of Ashcombe
game
More photographs of Chiltern
game |