On Tuesday the 31st of January we saw our men’s local league team take on men’s local University of Leicester 2. Overall our team had regional 2 players and we were joined by local league player Jake and Max O. Our team had 5(!!) middle players, who would usually play that position, which meant that some players had to play out of position.

Going into the first set saw us take on an early lead being numerous points ahead. However, during the middle of the set, our team came under pressure with their serves, and lacking a libero left our two middles Max and Josh having to fill the gap for that position. Unfortunately this left our setter Ben with difficulties setting up attacks. After that we struggled to keep up the score and eventually lost the first set being a few points behind.

The 2nd set saw more of the same pressure on Ben with our receives, and their setter piled on the attacks with tips which sometimes came untouched before the ground. Fortunately our spikes from the outside and opposite were strong and we were scoring points as well as making them work for the rally. A hit from Elliot brought our spirits up, and our middle players were valid decoys, drawing in their middle blocker to allow for spikes from the outside to be made only contested by one block. Mistakes mostly occurred in the build up of play from difficult balls, this stopped our front line from getting started. A hit on an overpass from Max O was memorable, which saw us gain a point. Although they seemed to get the better of us and caused us to make errors with tricky hits. After all we lost the second set too. 2-0 Uni of Leics

The third and final set (we play 3 in local league) saw Cobby switching up our players and allowed Max R some time as setter, where he put up nice sets. Hermitage were trailing Uni of Leicester most of the time, and the hustle from Elliot was unmatched when he chased after a ball and brought it back into play excellently. (Against his former team no less)

Gary was also as reliable as ever throughout the game.

Unfortunately we were unable to capitalise on our successes and lost the final set too.

Which means we lost against Uni of Leics 2 (3-0)

I would say there would be one key takeaway from this match, more key training needed.