Team Northumbria 3 - 1 Tendring Ladies

22-25, 25-20, 25-15, 25-18

Report by Chris Frost

With 2 games under the team’ belt, it was time for Tendring to travel up to the North like last week to play 2 games over the weekend. The first being against Team Northumbria. With a long journey up to the hotel, the team settled in on the Friday night and were able to have a good night’s rest before the tough game on Saturday.

The game got under way, and Tendring were the first to come out of the blocks firing strong. With some solid passing from Fernanda Guimaraes, Milly Stamp and Fran-Smith Daye this helped the team settle any nerves and also caught Team Northumbria off guard! With some excellent play by both teams, Tendring used the ball slightly better in transition and were constantly putting Team Northumbria under pressure to score points. With some block kills by Karis Watson and Chaniel Nelson, Tendring were soon ahead at the second technical time out! Some level headed playing from setter Molly Van Essen, the team clicked into the next gear and pulled away from the strong Northumbria team. With Chaniel serving on set point, and Molly Van Essen getting the Kill block to take the set 25-22.

However, with the help Northumbria had, they managed to claw their way back into the game and soon were in the driving seat.  Some strong service pressure was put on Tendring which they managed to withstand, but the bombardment was a constant pressure that Tendring weren’t able to cope with. Some strong offence from Northumbria’ middles and opposite hitter enabled them to always stay ahead of Tendring when it really mattered most. Tendring managed to get on some good positive service runs through good block defence and out of system play however it was never enough to gain the lead and were always trailing in the sets to come.

For such a new team, it was another positive step in the right direction, a 3-1 loss (25-22, 20-25, 15-25, 18-25. MVP was awarded to #3 Amelia Stamp (her second of the season)