Aylesbury Vale Volleyball ClubBuckinghamshire VolleyballVale make it 2 from 218 Nov 2007
Vale Vikings 3 Vale maintained a 100% record as they entertained Harriers Hawks of St Albans at the Sportspace Centre Berkhamsted last weekend. Vale took a squad of 9 over for the game, demonstrating good strength in depth. However, they made hard work of it at times and found themselves having to graft against a resilient St Albans side. Vale immediately set about St Albans demonstrating their superiority by cruising to a 10 point lead in the first set. However, poor passing in defence meant that Vale were never really able to get going in attack and St Albans who never gave up were able to close the gap down to 3 points at one stage. Vale fought back with strong serving from Sanne Kruize and eventually took the 1st set 25-19. With three substitutions in the 2nd set Vale looked disjointed and St Albans were able to build up a 5 point lead from the off. The team gradually settled however, and strong hitting from Marek Lebanowski took Vale back into the game, eventually taking the 2nd set 25-21. In the third set, Vale started well and looked more like a team who should be considered amongst the favourites to gain promotion this year. The passing improved, enabling for some good attacking play. Setters Artur Figlarski and Sanne Kruize were able to switch the attack across the whole net. St Albans had no answer and Vale took the 3rd set 25-20. It was a shaky performance at times from Vale, who will look to improve on this with two difficult fixtures around the corner. On 9th December, they entertain Division 1 team Watford in the quarter-finals of the HVA Cup, followed by last year´s league champions Rudolf Steiner. However, that being said Vale never really looked in trouble and were able to give plenty of match time to new players. Team: Chris Seal (c), Marek Lewandowski, Yohei Higashi, Tim Chandler, Bruce Arcibald, Grezgorz Ilczuk, Artur Figlarski, Sanne Kruze, James Raymonds Most Valuable Player: Sanne Kruize |