On Saturday January 7th, hermitage mens 1st team took on Ashfield Vipers away. The 1st team consisted of 7 members today. Jake, Stent, Tom, Jacob, Ashath, Erick and myself with a late arrival that we will speak on later… 

The first set saw Ashath start as our libero, with Jake and Lewis as outsides, Jacob as the setter, our middles Stent and Erick and finally our captain fantastic Tom as opposite. The first challenge we found in this set was the venues roof was lower than something we had played in before, meaning that passes needed to be more controlled to prevent the ball from hitting the roof and costing points. During the first set the 1st team struggled to make a statement, it was a very even affair between both teams. As a unit it became clear early on that we needed to apply the correct amount of pressure to force the opposition team to make mistakes, this however was not the case. During this set Vipers found themselves going head to head with us, a mixture of hitting out and some weak roll shots found us challenging to win this set. Passes were clipping the low roof of the venue and it took our side some time to find the correct rhythm. A time out saw us leading 21-22, a few points lost due to the roof, others because and I quote ‘we played dog’ - Tom King, 2023. As a team we worked through as a unit and saw this set out for the win.

The second set saw a much different story, the team had worked and sussed out the court and the roof issue, we took a comparable lead during this set and never looked back. Some big blocks, or should I say ROOFS from Stent and Erick saw us taking some well deserved points from some good rally’s. Jake as always was a reliable outside, hitting a range of shoots and ‘41’s’ to win us points. A couple of roll pipe and topspin aces from Lewis helped us to increase the lead even further. Big decision making in this set and composure from the team deciding when to kill a ball set by Jacob to when to pick out a spot on the court. Saw us see out the second set comfortably. 

During the 3rd saw our overall squad number go from the original 7 up to 8. You may wonder why this was… 

Our good friend Marcin had arrived to the venue ready to play the match, only issue being. He had arrived around an hour late and whilst the 3rd set was being played, with the score at the time being around 20 - 9 to us… there were calls for a substitution to be made to get Marcin in on for the last few points however this unfortunately didn’t happen and he had made the journey to watch around 4 points of volleyball to be played… as a summary of the 3rd set. Our first team found it comfortable, we took time with our hitting and passing and rarely made a mistake. 

Overall mens 1st took the game 3-0. A good run up to the next few games that we have next week, time for a well deserved rest for the team ready to go again on Wednesday.

P.s thank you to Vipers for nominating me as MVP - Jacob, I am more than happy for you to take over match report duties.