Devils had a full team except for Gemma who was bringing a bit of (much needed) glamour to the coaching team. The starting six were Mel, Sintija, Agata, Em, Trees and Chantelle. Worthing started slowly with Brighton coming off better in the early exchanges building a 10-5 lead, Worthing looking tense and were making a number of simple errors. It was only with Mel serving supported by a strong front court that we started to make a dent on the lead clawing back 9 points and taking us into the lead for the first time at 23-19. Trees took her que to close out the set 25 - 21 and Devils were one up away from home without playing their prettiest volleyball!
The second set started with the same team and again started very slowly with Brighton having the better start. It took Mel pulling out a wonder dive to keep the game alive at 18-24 down to inspire the team to make a late push to pull it back to 21-25, but they couldn't quite finish the set. With impressive blocking from both sides the back court had to work hard to pick up loose balls and tips over the block. Brinee had a good rotation putting up a couple of massive blocks but didn't really have an opportunity to unleash her power hits.
A couple of changes were made for the third set with Sabrina coming on for Agata and Robyn for Mel. For the first time the team started passing more confidently helping to build strong attacks which meant our hitters were getting better balls in and boy did they take advantage of it! The halls ceiling and walls took a peppering as Brighton struggled to contain our power hits and strong serving. Robyn setting cleverly used Trees and Chantelle back court to minimise the big Brighton block in key rotations and Sintija was everywhere diving across the court to pick up balls and raining down the hits front court. The Devils heads were up and they were enjoying themselves, as were the crowd who were cheering them on enthusiastically from the sides! From 4-8 up they quickly added to their lead and soon had a 9 point gap through a combination of strong serving by Sabrina and Chantelle and fantastic hitting by Trees, Sintija and Em. The set ended 25-13 and the team were keen to get back on the court for the next set!.
After such a strong set the same team came out to finish the game, hopefully in the same style. Brighton fought back though and stopped Devils getting the same head of momentum in this set. With both teams playing aggressive attacking volleyball and with strong blocking on both sides Worthing couldn't build a big lead and had to settle for a keeping a two point lead throughout the game until Trees stepped up at the end to win the final four points to get us over the line 25-19 winners - phew!
Brinee claimed another MVP with a rare performance through the middle - anyone would think that's her usual position!
The Devils are back in action at home next Sunday against Crawley.
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