Women's Regional 1 Vs. Cleobury
Sunday 8th November 2009
Birmingham faced Cleobury for the second time in two weeks with a chance to avenge the previous defeat. This time at home the squad arrived in force with 15 players turning out. Having opted for youth the 12 strong team, equipped with three further debutants.
The first set Birmingham went about looking to establishing themselves and looked to serve strong and pass consistently. With a consistent pass the team went about trying to attack Cleobury but unlike the last game where a variety of attacks kept the opposition guessing, this time both sides recycled well and had to make the most of free balls when they came.
In the second set Birmingham looked to carry the momentum forward and again put the pressure on Cleobury. Throughout a tight set Birmingham controlled the ball well and attacked with some aggression, forcing some of the few errors from Cleobury. With a good contribution from the middle hitters it was left to Sandra to serve for the set. Putting in 4 strong serves everyone was ready for another aced serve however when the ball fizzed past the second ref it was left to the team to play out and win the second set 25-22.
Making changes in the third Birmingham stumbled slightly but still performed well, finding themselves behind yet again but this time unable to pull it back. With the momentum changing Cleobury proved a tough unit to break down, defending extremely well many good passages of play from Birmingham went unrewarded. Entertaining rallies proved fruitless for Birmingham with some misfortune but also a little lack in placement Birmingham weren’t able to keep Cleobury under the same pressure as in the first two sets.
In under two weeks Birmingham went from losing 3-0 to narrowly missing out 3-2, this with a couple of experienced absentees and talented NVL players in Nuschin and Nadine cheering at the sidelines (along with returning former star Katie Allsopp). So despite the disappointment a lot of improvement was demonstrated in a short amount of time and hopefully further improvement over the next few weeks will see the results falling in Birmingham’s favour.
Match Facts
Competition: WMVA Division One.
Played: Home.
Result: Lost 2-3.
Set Scores: 25-23, 25-22, 17-25, 13-25, 8-15.