It was a weekend of top quality volleyball at Lavington school Devizes this Sunday, when Wiltshire Mavericks played host to the Men’s top of the table showdown between Wiltshire Maverick’s , Torexe Topgun’s and Cardiff Wildcats. Going in to the fixture, both Torexe and Wiltshire were unbeaten with a 100% record, with Cardiff just behind them in the table, having dropped just the one match todate.
Although the weekend’s results may not determine the final positions in the league, it would definitely help the team who could pick up the points from their nearest rivals. After an appropriate pre match build up, the first match of the day, Wiltshire v Torexe got off to a rather disappointing start, with Wiltshire easily taking the first two sets 25-19 & 25-12 from an embarrassed Torexe team who could not seem to get into the match.
Fortunately Torexe got it together in the third set and the event started to live up to its pre match expectations, with the third set going down to the wire at 23-25 to Torexe. The match momentum then started to swing towards the visitors, who took the fourth and fifth sets 14-25 and 7-15 for a 2-3 win over the hosts.
The second match of the day was Torexe v Cardiff, Cardiff started strongly, taking the first set easily 14-25, Torexe just took the second set 26-24 and it looked like we were in for another long match as the third also went the full distance, 25-23 in Torexe favour. However Torexe were able to get the advantage in the fourth set and took it 25-15 for a 3-1 win.
In the third match of the day, Cardiff again started strongly against Wiltshire, taking the first set 25-22 but Wiltshire hit back in the second set, coming from behind to take it 22-25. They repeated the feat in the third, again come from behind to take it 22-25. After such a close match, the fourth set was a bit one sided, with Wiltshire running out 12-25 winners and the match 3-1.
Comments from the Torexe Coach Dave Reece
This is the fixture that we have all been waiting for and the quality of volleyball did not disappoint, it was excellent. Picking up both wins, was an unexpected bonus for us, I would have been quite happy if all teams had came away with one win each. We were particularly lucky after the poor start in our first match, we could have so easily have lost the fixture without doing ourselves any justice.
We are half way through the season and find ourselves one win ahead of Wiltshire at the top of the table, we play them again in Bristol at the end of Feb. It’s a pity we do not meet them at home, where I would be more confident of repeating the win. The wins has given us an appropriate position in the league but there is still everything to play for, we can easily slip up at anytime and drop points to the teams chasing us.
