Newcastle Staffs Ladies V Loughborough Dolphins - 1/10/11
Castle Ladies entertained Loughborough Dolphins, bolstered by the welcome short-term return of Meg Viggars to the line-up. Setter Isobel Fumagalli also made her season debut along with 17 year old Marina Haritou making her first appearance in the Castle colours.
Castle started the game strongly with the serve reception unit giving Fumagalli good balls to distribute to her attackers. Loughborough playing their first game of the season started less positively and Castle soon raced to close the first set 25-16
The second set started Haritou and Gurgul replacing Rogers and Chadwick. Whilst Castle first ball remained stable Loughborough began to defend well behind the block and started to cause the Castle defence problems themselves. After many long rallies NSVC net dominance just about did enough to take the set 25-20.
Despite being 2-0 down, Loughborough were clearly still determined to get something out of the game and started set 3 the stronger. Despite a change of setter, with the introduction of Bellamy, Castle’s attack was becoming too predictable. A further string of substitutions failed to distract Loughborough, who always maintained a slender lead to take the set 25-21.
With Chadwick and Fumagalli returning to the starting 6 at the start of the 4th set, Castle managed to find another burst of energy with Gurgul and Stewart battling hard against the tall Loughborough middle net attackers. At 8-10 down Preston replaced Stewart as Castle tried to vary their attack with Viggars now playing middle for 2 rotations and Preston and James attacking effectively down the line through the wing. The Loughborough defence finally succumbed as Castle finished the set with a kill block by Rogers, to take the match 25-20.
The coaching staff were delighted to get their first win of the season and happy in the fact that all 12 selected players contributed in the win. This will hopefully give the squad a confidence boost after a difficult start to the season
Newcastle Ladies 3 Loughborough Dolphins1
25-16, 25-20, 21-25, 25-20
