Sunday 4 October 2015

Sharks show promise with epic opening game!

The Sharks finally kicked off the 2015/16 season in the first week of October travelling to Brighton to face Brighton Freedom, one of the top teams in the league last year. Unlike last year were there was lots of scrambling to pull together six players, this year they went with a full complement of seven, ready and raring to go.

Lining up with Dominic & Eber through the middle, captain Tim setting, Mark opposite and Vlad and Kishan power hitting through the outside they started slowly in the first set. 13:17 down at the first time out they pulled it back to 23:23 on the back of quality serving from Mark & Vlad and won 27:25


Second set started with Jin in for Mark and was another slow start giving Freedom another head start 4:11 but again pulling back to 23:23 before losing 23:25


Third set was a better start with Mark back in, Eber connecting on a couple of quick sets and Vlad dumping behind the blocks. Sharks pulled out to 10:4 before the tables were turned as they got stuck on a couple of troublesome serve receives losing 20:25


Fourth set was with Jin again. This time serves were swapped backwards and forwards, but some great play including the longest rally of the match with great cover on both sides. Sharks pulled ahead in the final stages, Tim targeting the sidelines with his serves to win 25:20. 


Final set and again the Sharks were slow to start 6:1 down at the first time out. They pulled it back to 10:10 with Eber dominating the net but got stuck on a serve rotation again losing 11:15

Whatever the result, they managed to maintain a higher standard for longer and put together some great passages of play. Just need to be quicker out of the blocks.........