Our first Merseyside League match of the season with Wirral A at home to LJMU Vipers.

Venue: Woodchurch HS

Start: 11:00am

Team: Katie Leppington (capt), Eisha Chahal, Helena Hinch, Yan Xi Chen, Lily Hogan, Lily Bloomfield, Abi Larway, Liv Stewart, Imi Newall, Kaitlin Ha, Emily Foster

Result: Lost 0-3, 24-26, 10, 25, 16-25

It looks like a bad 3-0 defeat but this result hides a lot of promise. Vipers are a good team with several US and European players including some strong servers and hitters. Our girls played realy well in the first set did a good job containing the opposition with the lead going back and forth and never more than 4 points between the teams, and fought their way to 24-23 before going down 24-26. Our defence was magnificent starting with the block where Yan Xi was outstanding but extending into good back court cover and terrific scambling. In the end we lost what would have been a well-earned hard-fought set win on two service errors. What a pity!

The second and third sets fell to our old bugbear of service receive problems and while Vipers were able to put together runs of 5, 6, 8 points on serve our girls struggled for consistency, with many service runs ending in our own errors. Even so valuable experience was gained in block and cover teamwork and we managed to put together some good attacking moves. If our girls can carry this form through into the rest of the season we can expect to finish high up the league and to put in a strong performance in VE’s U18 Grand Prix.