Tendring 1 - 3 Solent

24-26,25-20, 20-25,17-25

Report by Neil Masters

Just To Late

Tendring Men’s Volleyball suffered mixed emotions last weekend. Saturday saw them travel to Southampton to play in the National Shield Semi-final and Sunday provided a tough challenge in the shape of 3^rd placed Guildford.

A win on Saturday would see Tendring compete in the national finals weekend, the biggest weekend in the Volleyball calendar. But before even a Volleyball was hit, Tendring would have adversity to deal with. Travelling down to Southampton to play Solent, a team a division above Tendring was a tough challenge and this was made even tougher as a traffic accident on the M3 caused Tendring to turn up late for the match. The Tendring team were denied the opportunity to have a full warm up, which was crucial for their preparations.

It was a slow start for the team and the absence of a warm up were plain to see. Although Tendring were there to battle for a finals place and with the serving of Latvian Sergjs Dupleca pulled them level midway through the set. They continued to play better than their rivals and created a gap at 22-19. Solent would halt Tendring’s charge with a time out and with excellent service pressure crept into the lead at 23-22. Solent produced very consistent volleyball at this point and Tendring struggled to maintain that level, finally losing the set 26-24.

Tendring effectively had used the set as their own warm up and the second set would be their real start. Tendring took the lead early on with great serving from Dupleca again shot them into an 8-3 lead. Excellent blocking from Stuart Dove and Alex Porter saw Tendring maintain their advantage throughout the set. Tendring had finally found some consistency and took the set 25-20 with a hit by Nick Davies.

Solent got off to the best start in this set and went out to a 6-2 lead. Solent then applied more pressure on Tendring’s serve receive unit, extending their lead further. Tendring started to feel the effects of a tough road trip and errors started to appear in their game. This was unlike Tendring’s recent performances and not being used to this had an impact on their ability to side-out. Solent took the set 25-20.

Tendring got off to a really bad start in a set they knew they had to win if they were going to keep their dreams of playing in the final alive. Solent could sense that their chance to seal the win was looming and with effective hitting from ex-Tendring player Tom Robinson saw them to an 11-3 lead. This was unrecoverable and Tendring were now running out of ideas. Solent won the set 25-17 and the match 3 sets to 1, dashing Tendring’s hopes of their first senior finals appearance.

24-26,25-20, 20-25,17-25

Janice Porter Award: Liam Chinnery