Newmarket Volleyball Club

Mens Cambs League
Sunday - 22nd November

v
Rhinos

Newmarket made the short trip to Cambridge to face Rhinos. Late arrival of Newmarket players disrupted their warm up, and reflected in an early lead for the Cambridge team. Despite failing to win any attacks Rhinos extended their lead to 8:3 as Newmarket hit a series of balls out . A couple of intelligently dumped balls by Rob dovaston clawed points back and an unstoppable quick reverse by Pete 'Storm' Gale started the Newmarket revival. Six straight points put Newmarket in Front and Confidence grew. A time-out by the opposition did nothing to slow the Newmarket team and a 19:11 lead was soon established, and eventually cruised to a 25:16 1st set win.

Newmarket clearly had the greater fire power, but the second set followed the pattern of the first with several attack errors by Newmarket, and poor defensive play at times, keeping the scores level through the set . Once the passing found setter, Ben Child, quick middle balls soon evolved and Paul Freeman grounded everything fed to him, and this well supported with some very hard aggressive hitting from Fabio Stabile which Rhinos had no chance of stopping. Rhinos had the better defense and this kept them in the set and going into the closing stages held a two point lead. However, some sensible shot selections from Shaun McCormack showed the younger players how to keep the ball in and win points and Newmarket nicked the set 25:22

Rhinos fight was now broken and they offered little resistance to a dominant Newmarket side. Fabio Stabile continued to kill all the outside balls set to him and Freeman won regular points when set quick balls. However, there continued the odd erratic attack error, plus six service faults which kept Rhinos within respectable range. The set was eventually closed out with a winning block from Pete Gale 25 : 18 for a 3 :0 victory.