With only half an hour to recover from the gruelling Plymouth game, it was a very weary Nomads team that took to the court to face Solent.
The Herts team couldn't get it together in time and made a very slow start. Solent edged into the lead and the Nomads had to dig deep to reply. Solent put up a strong block and frustrated the Herts team by picking up everything. The Nomads found themselves drawn into long rallies, which was the last thing they needed, having spent so much energy in the first game.
Solent maintained their lead and whilst the Herts team rallied towards the end of the set it was too little too late and Solent took it 25 - 19.
Herts attacked the second set with more determination and strong serving. Solent fought back and continued to frustrate the Herts attack by getting a hand to everything and picking up the most impossible balls!
It wasn't pretty volleyball from the tired Herts team, but pure determination carried them through to take the set 25 - 22.
The third set was another slog for the Nomads, but they managed to maintain more control over the proceedings and finally pulled away to 22 - 18 and hung on to take the set 25 -20.
The Nomads seemed out of energy for the 4 th set, Solent employed clever tipping tactics to gain an early lead. The Herts team fought bravely to stay in the set, playing catch up all the way. At 11 - 17 down the Nomads needed to dig very deep to stay in the set. With a huge team effort the Herts team kept plugging away, Solent must have thought they had the set in the bag as the score climbed to 22 - 17. However, the Nomads had given too much to the cause to just roll over and with incredible guts and determination they Herts team brought the score to 20 -23. Herts took up the serve at 21 - 23 and pulled out all the stops to win the set 25 -23.
This was a fantastic effort from a squad of only 7 players on the day. The team thoroughly deserved the two excellent wins , which helped ease the exhaustion enough to face the 4 hour drive home!Click
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