NL Division 3E, 17th November 2001
Warwick Riga 2 3 Brentwood 1 (25-? 25-? 25-27 25-21)
Warwick Riga 2 2 Ashcombe 2 3 (25-19 21-25 18-25 27-25 13-15)
| Riga ladies second team have climbed into to the top half of Division 3 East with a great performance against Brentwood and Guildford on Saturday. The squad has been bolstered with new arrivals Ana and Clare and our first game was against our bogey team - Brentwood . Riga raced in to a 2 set to 0 lead with strong performances from everyone. | |
 Steph hitting against Brentwood |
The 3rd set saw Riga throw away a 23-19 lead as
the Essex team fought back well to take the third set 27-25. A tougher attitude in the 4th set saw Riga clinch the set, 25-21 and the match by 3-1. This was our first win against Brentwood and it was great to break our duck against them. |
| The second game was against top of the table Guildford who beat Riga 3-0 in the opening match of the season. However, buoyed by the confidence of the first win, Riga held the surrey team for the opening exchanges. Guildford then pulled away to a 15-6 lead and then Riga's great comeback started. Irene Scorza won 13 straight points on her serve as the opposition couldn't cope with it's power and swerve. Guildford simply couldn't respond and Riga won the set 25-19. | |
| The league leaders were clearly unsettled by this strong Riga performance and they fought back in the 2nd set to clinch it , 25-21. They also took the next set 25-18 and it looked like the match was all over as Riga found themselves 17-23 down in the 4th set and with a tiny bench of just 2 rather tired subs! Again though, the great Riga team spirit which has seen this team to many notable performance took over. Steph pulled off 7 winning serves to get us right back in the set and we fought for every point and took the set 27-25. | |
| So, a fifth set took place and this was a question of "what might have
been". Great Riga play took a tense final set to 13-13. Sarah 's
back court spike was marginally a foul with her foot just over the line even though the
shot was a clean winner . This took Guildford to match point and they took the
set 15 - 13. This was easily our best performance for some time and we achieved it
with just 8 players (Tina played great though 4 for the entire match!!). So Guildford stay top and we're up to 4th and can't wait for the next game on December 9th in London. |
|
| More photographs of this match | |