Match Report

Oxford MNVL vs Loughborough Students

Date:
15 Jan 2011
Location:
New Sports Hall, Loughborough
Result:
3-0 (25-13, 29-27, 25-16)
MVP:
Martijn Stroo
Players:
Jon Wiliams (setter), Andrew White (libero), Jamie Walls (opposite), Giovanni Grasso, Gabriele Devita, Martijn Stroo (outsides), Paul Swift, Scott Hale (middles)

Comments

"

In our previous match against Loughborough, we had dispatched them with some ease in three sets. To set against that, their student team (which is almost identical to their NVL team) had been very impressive against the Oxford students. One of their middles in particular had wreaked havoc – hitting very high and cutting to either side.

On the day, the Loughborough team had their big middle, but were missing some of their student team players. We also learnt that they hadn’t had the opportunity to train together since Christmas. The omens were positive.

In the first set, Oxford stole the show. To all apppearances, the team had been training assiduously through the Christmas break, instead of stuffing their faces. Energy was excellent, defence (led by Andy) was convincing, and Jon did a good job of delivering the ball to the hitters, who pounded away happily. Loughborough made a fair number of unforced errors, blazing over the block, but Oxford looked extremely convincing (25-13).

The second set was tighter, neck and neck all the way. Giovanni came in for Gabriele at the half-way mark, but couldn’t swing things decisively our way. We had a few lucky calls from the ref, and held it together well enough to clinch the set 29-27.

In the third set, Loughborough’s heads went down and Oxford returned to their winning ways. We targeted the weaker passers effectively. Lough receive in 4 – which can leave a good passer dealing only with short serves and a weaker passer taking half the back court. Without the pass, their power-middle was ineffective. At one point they switched him to the outside, which worked pretty well, but they gave up the experiment. They had a strong outside player who hit hard and deep, but was chary of our block, and tended to hit out. A classic moment was when Jamie was set opposite a metre outside the antenna. Oddly, he still managed to cream it down the line. Kudos. The line judge, when queried by the second ref, saw no problem with this feat, although Loughborough had their doubts. Oxford romped home 26-16.

All in all, an excellent start to the second half of the season. Everyone played well, although our serve receive needs some work (rather too many over-bumps for Jon’s liking). Even more imortant, there was excellent chemistry on court. Good determination, good team feeling. Good times!

"

Report by Paul

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