MVLWD1 match.

Wirral A v Warrington 

Venue: Woodchurch HS

Date Sunday April 7

Team: Katie Leppington (capt), Helena Hinch, Eisha Chahal, Imi Newall, Yang Xi Chen, Abigail Larway, Gaby Liu, Emily Foster, Lily Prosser

Result: lost 0-3, 16-25, 17-25, 13-25.

Disappointing.

Warrington women are top of the league and haven’t conceded a set this season but this was the first time we’ve been able to turn out our strongest U17 team in a league match this year and it looked like a good chance to test our system, organisation and effectiveness. Unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. Our defence and scrambling ability were found wanting in the 1st set as Warrington pulled away from 10-9 to an easy 25-16 victory finding the floor all too easily with tips and well placed ball. We had had 4 proper attacks and scored 3 points so theere was some hope that we’d do better as the match progressed. Set 2 started better as our girls were able to put up more attack and won a few points with spikes and tips but the result was much the same as Warrington pressed home their better court coverage and more varied attack. Our serving was good but their serve-receive was better, our block never touched the ball, and our back court tried hard but coudn’t get the level of control we needed. Changes of personel in set 3 made the situation worse, our serving collapsed - one sequence of 8 serves had 7 errors - and we deserved to lose 13-25.

Warrington were good but it was a sharp reminder of how much work we need to do to to get ready for Portugal and also a reminder of how much we rely on our service to score points - Warrington’s serve-receive was really good and that prevented our team from getting a foothold in the match.