East Midlands Volleyball League
Saturday 9th March 2019 Ashfield Vipers 2 3 Leicester Athena 1 (25-11, 14-25, 25-15, 25-10) Ashfield Vipers' young team were fresh from reaching the semi-finals of a national U18's schools tournament and they showed their skill and their togetherness as they beat a patched up Athena. With Julia injured, Ioana started as setter and captain for Athena. Eli played as opposite, Amanda and Marta played middle and Alessandra and Edyta were outside hitters. It was an inexperienced team: Eli playing her first match as opposite, Alessandra and Amanda were playing only their second matches of the season. Athena started very well, matching Vipers blow by blow until Viper's #10 came to serve at 8-7 down. Her hard, deep, accurate serves caused huge problems for Athena who could not build a telling attack. Her impressive serving display took the set away and Vipers 2 won 25-11. Athena came right back and built a steady lead, helped by great serving from Edyta, some massive blocks by Marta and Eli and by some solid hits from Alessandra. Athena won the second set 25-14. Edyta and Alessandra switched sides for the third set to help Eli out at opposite, but the change unsettled the team with Eli and Alessandra losing their place in the rotation. As their focus began to slip, Athena's first pass struggled and it was the turn of Vipers' #12 to put together a serving set that built an unassailable lead and they took the third set 25-15. Athena's struggles with formation continued into the fourth set as minds began to tire and Vipers 2 sealed the match 25-10. At times, Athena's play was excellent and they played better than any time this season, so there was a lot of positives to take from the match. They did lose their way too many times as they struggled with the rotation but it was merely a reflection of the patched up team with new players and people playing out of position. Congratulations to Marta for a well deserved MVP nomination and a huge thank you to Milly who didn't manage to get on court today but provided relentless and noisy encouragement from the bench. That is true teamwork.
1 Comment
Maddi
9/3/2019 07:05:46 pm
Just to let you know vipers 2 played in the u16 national championship,wich makes them 3rd in the country. Nice game tho ladies 😊 easy mistake.
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