Bad day for volleyball team (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Bad day for volleyball team

4:00pm Saturday 9th February 2013 in Sport

BASINGSTOKE Lions men’s volleyball team suffered a couple of defeats in their latest outing, starting against a very strong Oxford team.

The visitors’ cause was not helped by the game being played in a school hall with bad lights and low ceilings.

Good serving from Oxford and a slow start from the Lions saw them trail 13-1. But Basingstoke woke up and put together some superb plays. Effective blocking and some well placed tips gave the Lions five unanswered points, before Oxford re-grouped and came back to take the first set 25-9.

The second set saw Basingstoke dramatically improve their play. There was a visible increase in the quality of the plays, passes and spikes. Some very good rallies kept them in sight but Oxford’s domination of the league showed in their performance as they took the second set 25-11.

Next up for the Lions was a match against Newbold and, having led 10-7, missed opportunities and basic errors led them to lose the first set.

A different team arrived for the second set, one which watched every ball, reacted to every game change and pressured Newbold to make mistakes. This pushed up the confidence of the Lions and they tied the scores before winning the set 27-25.

Set three began again with Basingstoke on top and they built up a five-point lead.

Some errors from the Lions allowed Newbold to take advantage of some easy returns. The momentum was now with Newbold and they won the deciding set 15-7.