Result and Report: Student Cup Qualifiers 12/11

Student Cup Qualifiers Sat 12th Nov 05

We all travelled up in the minbus and a few cars to Sleaford in Lincolnshire on Friday night for an overnight stay in a Travel Lodge ready for Saturday. Despite being in the middle of nowhere we managed to have a nice relaxed night and worked on the team spirit. We, well the boys all chowed down on a healthy portion of Burger King accompanied by the new team headwear, the Burger King Crown. We all sang happy birthday to Tobi and let him have a beer (but just the one so not to start him off again) to go with the cake we had bought him. The guys had a chat about teamwork and atmosphere on court before all being in bed before 12 ready for the qualifiers in the morning. This all went alot easier than i imagined, probably helped by the absence of a pub where we were staying.

In the morning a 7 O'clock wake up call was met with less contempt than expected, excpet from Katie and Ailsa who despite going to bed the earliest were the hardest to wake up. A nice or as nice as can be expected breakfast in Little Chef and we departed on the 5 minute journey to RAF Cranwell.

We all registered and found ourselves a spot on the stands for the day, in what was a much better quality hall than last years qualifier at Leeds, no basketball net 1 meter above position 4 this time thankfully.

MEN

The mens squad was as follows: Dan Littlehales, Dave Richards, Eoin Sunley, Fernando Diaz Lopez, Jacob Kruger, Loic Jullion, Matt Giles, Tobias Ballnath, Tomek Lasocki. And of course our resident volleyball guru and coach Keith Nicholls was in attendance. We started off refereeing the match between the other 2 teams in the pool Leeds Met and Hull, teams we were to play twice that day. The game went the way of Leeds Met who in reality were the better team, had a nice left handed hitter playing through 4 and a fairly decent middle player, who timed his hits well. Hull had one nice player who gave it his all, and could really hit a backcourt hit but unfortunately for him was surrounded by mainly beginners and at that point it looked like they would be in for a tough day.

1st Match we played Leeds Met, who to me seemed like they had a very similar team to the one we played last year. Last year we managed to play their no.2, their best player out of the game and Keith once again set up a game plan to do this. We put Tobi at opposite to block against him and effecitively served and blocked him out of the game, athough saying that he did manage a few good hits down the line, leaving Dave to work on his positioning. We had Loic going over their small setter, who despite having nice hands and a solid game all round was an obvious weakness for our team to use. And although they pushed us further than perhaps we would have liked we took the match with some extremely strong hitting from Jacob and Loic through 4 and from the backcourt. I was particularly pleased with the atmosphere on court, all of a sudden we sounded like a team and we played like one too. Our discipline also has to be commended and that we didnt get dragged into negative comments being thrown around after an outburst from their decent middle player about whether he made a touch or not. Apparently his elbow was bad, although he was hitting well enough. If it had been on our team it would have found its way into the funny moments nominations.  The game went our way 2-0 (25-19, 25-18)

Second Match we played Hull and again worked on their weaknesses. We did this well and managed to for the most part, play the game at our level even if the opposition could have dragged us into a scrappy game. Again their captain and best hitter picked up a few points but we managed to play him out of the game most of the time, aided by the poor service he was getting. Usually i would comment on how i know how he feels, but i have to say i was impressed with the first pass, especially when you think about the Local League match against Pirtates a week earlier. Some good passing and patient play from all members of the team saw us take the game with relative ease and it gave the guys a chance to try a few things. ID and Eoin were improving their timing through the middle which is good news for us. Won 2-0 (25-16, 25-15)

After the break in play Hull managed a 2-1 victory over Leeds Met which was interesting, i personally felt that as nice a team as Leeds Met were at times their confidence had gone. We would have to exploit this in our second game against them as a win would see us guarentee qualification with a game to spare.

The second match against Leeds Met was basically a continuation of the first. Our tactical play was good and we managed to pull away with relative ease. Leeds were demoralised and we were playing nice attacking volleyball. Some huge hits and blocks were being executed. Although they pushed us in the first set, the second was a white wash in our favour and allowed us to try yet more things out. Matt and Dan both had some chances to play and our middle players were working hard at running for every ball something which will be important at the finals. We took the game 2-0 (25-19, 25-8) 

Although we had already qualified we had one game left against Hull, we really tried a few things here. Loic had a game through the middle and hit a lovely reverse short in the first few points. Jacobs hitting was as strong as it had been allday and Matt came on to make some nice sets out to 4. The atmosphere was still great. Second set saw Dave have his worst game of the day Missing a serve and making some bad sets, so he was replace by Eoin who had a go at playing opposite. Its always good to try these things out. Fernando got some nice passes in in the last match and ID had a few nice hits through the middle as did Loic. Dan managed to use the ineffeciency of the hull block by hitting late and well. We took the last game 2-0 too (25-18, 25-16)

The guys had a great day, after last weeks local league i will admit to being worried but the team spirit and atmosphere we had talked about suddenly kicked in and had a massive effect on our play. I couldnt be happier with the effort put in on Saturday and a few promising things came out of it. Jacob can still hit bombs, loic did well outside and through the middle, Fernando did his job well at Libero,Toby is possibly finally the sort of opposite we have craved, ID and Eoin are getting stronger all the time as are Matt and Dan who gained some valuble experience and Daves knees held up.

Congratulations guys, 8 sets for 0 against is impressive no matter who you play, lets start to prepare for the finals asap.

GIRLS

Although when we turned up we thought the girls draw had been kind to them, allowing them to play leeds met first and then watch the game between the 2 other teams who made the finals last year Nottingham and Loughborough 2, this turned out to be bad as Leeds Met were the strongest team there. I didnt get a chance to watch the girls much so cant write much of a report for the games but i can give the results. If one of the girls would be so kind to write a short report i will add it here, (Katie or Sam or someone).

Lost to Leeds Met 0-2 (14-25, 18-25)

Beat Loughborough 2 2-0 (28-26, 25-20)

Beat Nottingham 2-1 (25-23, 16-25, 15-12)

As we left the game between Leeds Met and Nottingham was being played, the chances of the girls qualification as a second place team would depend partly on the result from this game. If Nottingham picked up a win it may have been enough to see them into Second ahead of UEA. Hopefully we got second place and we can sit with fingers crossed that we may get through to the finals. If not then we will still try and make a club trip up to leeds out of it and people can come and support and enjoy a night or 2 out in leeds. No matter what happens though girls you still played very well in the short bits i saw and the first set against Nottingham despite being Nerve wracking was great to watch.

Girls Squad - Ailsa Miller, Corinna (Ling) Luther, Hana Balajkova, Jess Horvath, Katie Johnson, Meghan Egleton, Renata Silva, Sam O'Connor, Victoria Flamant. And of course coached by the ever freezing cold Lilian Blot

There are some photos of the day here, i still have to get some developed and if anyone else has any then let me know and we can upload them to the site too.

UEA - Squad Ailsa Miller, Corinna (Ling) Luther, Hana Balajkova, Jess Horvath, Katie Johnson, Meghan Egleton, Renata Silva, Sam O'Connor, Victoria Flamant. COACH - Lilian Blot. .