Men through to BUSA Finals
Saturday 23rd February 2008
Team receives jump serve on their way to beating the University of Southampton 3-0.
The BUSA men?s team have succeeded in making it through to the BUSA Trophy finals after a straight sets victory away to Southampton last Wednesday.
The trophy knock-out rounds started for the men?s team with a home draw against the University of Glamorgan. With no leagues tables available for the BUSA West Division it was impossible to know the strength of the Glamorgan team. However, they revealed their lack of confidence about winning the game before it even started with a protest about the University?s sports hall not being suitable for the match and opted to ?play under protest?.
The home team duly started much the better, winning a tight first set 25-23 before comfortably winning the second set 25-15 with strong all round performance. The third set continued as the second had ended with Birmingham establish a comfortable four point lead by the middle of set, however, a lack of experience amongst the home side revealed itself as they squandered the lead in the latter half of the set and eventually lost it 26-28. That gave Glamorgan the glimmer of hope they had been looking for and they played much better in the fourth set, trading points all the way through the and ultimately winning it 26-24. The prospect of defeat was just what Birmingham need though, and from the start of the fifth set the home team showed that they could play at another level above Glamorgan, winning the decider 15-7 to win the game 3-2.
The second knockout round saw Birmingham away to the University of Southampton, also from the BUSA West league; the only information about them was that they had beaten Portsmouth in the previous round in straight sets. Southampton looked a good side during the warm-up with several good technical players. Their technical ability did not transfer into a strong team performance, and the greater team cohesion, especially in defence, of Birmingham was the major difference throughout the game. Birmingham won the first set comfortably 25-22, and controlled the second set, leading all the way through despite a late surge from Southampton, to win 25-23. The third set was in a similar vein, and although Birmingham never pulled away from their opponents they controlled the set throughout and won it 25-22.
Birmingham will now play the University of Kent in the semi-finals in Sheffield on the 15th March and hopefully make the final against either the University of Leeds or Cranfield University the following day.
More photographs are available in the gallery