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Riga Ladies faced Sheffield on Sunday for their last home game of the season. Recent performances have been excellent with the team recording their first victory
against Solent last month and losing in a very close 5 setter to TH Lynx on the same weekend.
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For the Sheffield match, several challenges faced the squad ... Emma was the only middle hitter available due to player absence - well Janine was in New Zealand
so that’s a fair excuse - and injury to Anna . So who was going to play through 3 and that role fell to Sharon, so watch this space for how she got on in her debut in this
position. Coach John has also implemented a new defensive system, brought on by Sarah's many ski holidays. Our libero now plays at 5 with the outside hitters going
to 6 - confused - well again, read on to see how the team fared with this new line up on the back court.
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Set one saw Riga start nervously and we couldn't quite get out of the blocks and allowed Sheffield to take a lead of several points. Despite a few substitutions, Riga
couldn't quite recover the 6 point deficit that had built up and we lost the first set 25-20.
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In the second set, John again made several changes and a more determined team took to the court. Riga started strongly, setters
Ginny and Clare were finding the hitters well and Riga's middle hitters in particular started making some excellent winners. Sharon won a string of points through 3 and
looked like she has played this position for years.
Riga 's defence was also working very well with Nettie, Jayne and Penny adapting quickly to their new back court role. Their cover was superb and Sheffield just couldn't
find any gaps on the Riga side. Even Sarah remembered where she had to go on court and only occasionally tried to take up her old 6 position before being gently
reminded by John that she actually playing thru' 5. Riga took the 2nd set 25-22.
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Sharon Allen: string of points through the middle
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Set 3 saw another strong performance by the Riga team and by this point, our record crowd of 15 was well and truly getting behind the team. We have our very own
Barmy Army in Andy - who was leading the support with his musical efforts featuring an empty water bottle. Our attack was working so well by now - we had Jayne tipping
the ball into short 6, Penny doing wipe-offs from the Sheffield block, Emma and Sharon continued their strong performance thru' 3 and Ruthie was making a case to be
a middle hitter with a number of winning hits into the gaps. We took the 3rd set 25-21 and so into the next set.
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Riga’s good play continued, the back court cover was working really well - its just a shame its taken us till March to try out a different system! We took an early lead and
never looked like losing the set. We raced to a 24-13 lead - had a slight wobble on match point, but that’s pretty typical for us lot and then clinched the set 25-16 and the
match by 3 sets to 1.
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This was a really good all round squad performance, especially as we had a rookie middle hitter plus a new back-court system to run with. Our final game of the
season is away to Tameside and with the team in this form - who knows what we can achieve.
BIG thanks to all our supporters and to Nathan , Lionel , Chris Martin, Ben and Cameron for reffing , lining and scoring.
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