NVL Division Three Central
28 September 2008
Venue: Ealing
Riga 2 Ealing 3 (25-21, 14-25, 16-25, 25-16, 12-15)
Riga 1 Northampton 3 (17-25, 25-17, 14-25, 22-25)

Report written by Virgina Rennie (with v limited assistance from Netti, Clare and a sleeping Emma!)

A frustrating weekend saw Riga womens' 2 break their 50% winning streak by losing both matches on their second of many visits to London this season.

The day started brightly with an enthusiastic Riga making an impressive start against a strong Ealing team. Strong blocking from Sharon and Jeanine in their first matches baced up by strong serving from Ellie and Netty let Riga win the first set at 25-21. Things then began to go awry, Ealings middle hitters started finding the gaps but despite strong seving from Julie and valuable setting from Emma Ealing won the next sets 25-14, 25-16. Riga re-grouped in the fourth set with Jayne finding her range and Ginny varying the distribution. Riga won the set 25-16. Into the fifth and strong serving from Ginny allowed Riga to make the change of ends with a 8-4 lead. but then Ealing turned up the pressure and went on to win the set and the match, 15-12.

It was then a quick turnaround for the game against local rivals Northampton. Despite Julie turning in a player of the match performance as libero, Riga struggled to get into a match played at a much slower pace with disjointed play. With Emma serving well and rotating the attack and Clare playing both as setter and outside hitter Riga and Northampton traded the first two sets 25-17. It was then that the effort put into the first match began to tell. The loss of intensity lead to Northampton running away with the set 25-14. Riga rallied in the fourth using the last of their energy but lost out in a closely fought set 25-22.

A disappointing day with the only silver lining being the M25 taking an hour less than it had the week before!