MVLWD1 match.

Wirral A v Everton Rhinos

Venue: Litherland High School, Sterrix lane, Bootle. L21 0DB

Team: Katie Leppington (capt), Helena Hinch, Gabi Liu, Imi Newall, Abi Larway, Lily Prosser, Natsui Yamamoto

Result: Lost 3-0, 26-28, 19-25, 19-25.

Wow, what a game! Narrowly lost close, hard fought, exciting first set, then made great comebacks in sets two and three. A really good performance from our girls.

The first set was absolutely terrific. Our team went 8-0 down to a very strong run of serves from the opposition captain but clawed their way back into the match point by point with stubborn back court play featuring some amazing recovery play from Gaby, Katie and Helena and strong hitting, mainly from Abi. Our girls fought their way into a 24-21 lead and led again at 26-25 only to go down 28-26. 

After losing the first set at the death Wirral started the second on the back foot and couldn’t find the attacking winners we’d produced in set 1. Rhinos built up a strong lead but a few good shots restored some belief and some steady serving and clever hitting from Katie set up a fightback and got us up to 19 before Rhinos managed to see out the set. The third was similar to set 2, we fell behind and fought back well  only to stumble at the end. Our girls struggled to build a run of serves as Rhinos often turned over side-out points on first serve. We attacked more effectively but the defence was tiring and we conceded points through bad positioning or poor passing. Even so we were gathering momentum at 19-23 when the charge was halted by more unforced errors. 

It was an exciting game that kept the crowd on the edge of their seats and gave Helena’s mum and gran a Mother's Day treat. Katie had a really good game in front and back court and served well, Helena is growing into her new role as libero and did a great job in covering the middle where we’ve lost a lot of points in recent matches, Gaby was all energy and instumental in a lot of unbelievable last ditch recoveries, and Natsui - in her first outing with the A team - did everything we could ask with reliable serving, passing and short cover.

Overall it was a good performance from a really promising team but some day soon we are going to have to turn these good performances into winning performances.