Match Report

Oxford WNVL vs IMKA Polonia (cup match)

Date:
10 Oct 2009
Location:
St Greg's, Oxford
Result:
1-3 (25-23, 20-25, 14-25, 19-25)
Players:
Sarah (setter), Kath (opp), Charlotte (opp/outside), Jana, Jovana (outsides), Kerstin, Sam (middles), Jenna (libero) & Ludo (coach)

Comments

A disappointing match in which the Oxford Women's NVL team did not live up to their potential, saw us lose 1-3 to a strong London team.

The first set saw Oxford struggling from the off, with poor passing, particularly on the serve-receive, resulting in weak attacks that allowed Polonia to take full advantage and really hammer the ball back at us. At 8-17 things were looking pretty dire when a fantastic service run from Kath saw us back in the match and suddenly awake and firing on all cylinders. Our passes were spot-on, our attacks strong and an increasingly stressed and diminished Polonia team struggled to deal with the turn-around in our performance. Oxford managed to keep up their momentum and closed out the set at 25-23, with excitement evident all round.

Unfortunately, we failed to capitalise fully on our lead going into the second set, and a number of unforced errors, particularly in serving and attacking, caused the team to drop their heads and allow a revived Polonia to gain in confidence and start to really hit at us again, winning the set 20-25.

Polonia kept up their momentum in the third set, and a couple of their servers caused us real problems with our passing, leading to a sense of frustration in the Oxford camp as every player seemed to be having a bit of an off day and making unforced errors. Polonia closing the set at 14-25 says enough about our performance here.

Sadly, although we had moments in the fourth set where we did pick up our level of play and cause Polonia some trouble, with some good attacks and a couple of great blocks, we never really looked particularly threatening. Far too many serves went out or in the net, and players were once again out of position in defence resulting in poor passing. Polonia pulled off their third winning set at 19-25.

It was a great shame that we did not all pick up our game against this level of opposition; they were a good team but they were by no means out of our league if we had all been playing at our usual standard. The team needs to work on serving and defence positioning in particular – and on raising their spirits and banding together when things get tough. Our team has great potential, however, so we just need to chalk this one up to experience and work on our weak areas so that we can fulfil this potential in future matches.

Report by Sam Vermaak

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