Ladies 2nd team beat Norwich, lose to Oxford

NL Division 3E, 13th January 2002
Norwich  2 Warwick Riga 2 3 (22-25 29-27 25-18 23-25 9-15)
Oxford Students 3 Warwick Riga 2 0 (25-12 25-17 25-20)

Riga ladies second team faced 2 difficult games on Sunday - high flying Oxford who are aiming to get promoted after losing narrowly in the play off final last season - and Norwich - currently bottom of the league - even though they play good volleyball.
Norwich were up first and a tight first set followed.  Neither team was  able to secure a strong lead and the lead changed hands constantly.  Then the match turned into Italy versus Norwich with  Italy winning by a mile . Irene dominated a period of play  with a series of stunning spikes from a  standing position ( what will she do when she jumps !! ) and Riga took the set 25 -22.  Set 2 turned out to be the longest of the match and again, it was point for point until Norwich clinched it 29 -27.  Riga has their chances to win the second set but just couldn't clinch the crucial point .
Set 3 was Riga's worst of the match - despite trying several substitutions and making full use of time outs, Riga could not get into the set and a series of unforced errors saw Norwich win 25 -18.  Time for strong talking from Coach Sarah and Captain Virginia at the start of the 4th set as we knew that we had to win the match to avoid getting sucked into a relegation fight .  The whole team played much better, with Ana's back court play particularly impressive and Riga raced to a 24- 20 lead.  Concentration then wavered at the vital point and  it took tough talking at a time out to get the team focussed again.  Despite conceding a few more cheap points, Riga took the set 25- 23  and the match into a deciding 5th set.		Ana Agudo
Ruth Gillett	Riga have a strong track record in 5 set matches and soon raced into a 4 -0 lead .  Again though, concentration slipped and Norwich came back  to lead 7 -5 . At this point , the whole team raised their game - cheered on by a very noisy Riga bench- as the famous team spirit took the team's volleyball up a gear.  Steph served 8 winning points and Ruth Gillett decided that it was her turn to take on Norwich single-handedly as she hit 27 clean winners ( might not be the right number ??).  By the time the Steph and Ruth show had finished , Riga were safely at match point and took the set 15 -9 and the match 3-2.
Coach Sarah Halling said afterwards - " before the start of the match , we agreed that we needed to show a more determined , aggressive attitude in the second half of the season and the performance against Norwich showed that we are clearly capable of playing good volleyball- whilst still overcoming some periods of poor play.  The result was so important as defeat could have taken us right down the league, so I 'm delighted that everyone played so well and we won.
Riga's second game against Oxford was a slightly different story.  Oxford needed to win  3-0 to keep the pressure on TH Lynx and they were also in danger of running out of time for the hall booking.  Oxford raced in to a rather big lead with some awesome hitting from their star  middle hitter.  Riga were somewhat shell shocked and it took a couple of time outs to  regain the teams' composure.  We also changed our strategy to cope with the big hitters , with a bigger block and our middle players gambling more on where the hit would go.  This paid dividends as Riga got back into the match and got to 12 points before Oxford hit 25.
Stephanie Geoffroy	Tactics for set 2 involved more predicting where the hits would go - and Riga slowed the game right down to play at our pace. We clearly couldn't match Oxford's fire power but we started to find the gaps and Ruth and Steph produced some stunning blocks which lifted the team's confidence.  Sarah also made a guest appearance on court  and was soon winning points with her infamous dumps to short 6.  We took 17 points off oxford in set 2 and decided that in set 3 , we would keep them on court as long as possible and aim to get more than 17 points.  Set 3 saw some superb volleyball  from both teams with Oxford attacking really hard and incredible defending  from Riga.  Set 3 was the closest of the match and  at 18 - 20 , it could have gone either way. Oxford's superior hitting power just clinched it for the students  and they took the set 25 - 20 but , boy , did we have them worried.
So, 4 points from 2 matches lifts the team up to 5th place in the league, ahead of Norwich, Brentwood and Chiltern ( we have won 1 more set than  Chiltern so it's really tight ! ).  This was a very good day for Riga, great play from everyone and we're looking forward to our next games in just 2 weeks time - away to Ashcombe and Chiltern.