Men's 1 continue winning run in 2012!

On Sunday 8 January 2012, the Men's 1 team had their first league fixtures. Freshly back from the December and New-Year’s break a seven-strong team travelled in style to Aldershot to play the third and fourth team in the league: Maidenhead and Farnborough. Oxford team for the day, in estimated order of appearance: Jon, Rune, Martijn, Steve, Gabriele, Lukasz and Gérard.

First match against Maidenhead: They had some new faces in their team which worked well for them, as they took advantage of a few too many mistakes on our side. At times we played well, and we saved the best for last which was a little too late. Jon served a few aces and from 14-22 behind we came back to 21-24 only to lose the first set 21-25. We continued playing well at the start of the second set, although some inconsistency in most aspects of our game gave them the chance to stay in the set. At 16-16, Martijn served 5 times in a row to take the lead, and although we gave them a few more points to make it 24-22, we won the third set, 25-22. And so our first decider of the New Year. We gave them a two-point head start, but that was it. Only Jon, Gerard and Martijn served in the third set to win comfortably and deservedly 15-6, winning the match 2-1. MVP as voted by them: Jon!

Second match against Farnborough: We had beaten them twice already this season and were very keen to make it a hatrick. As we had a good ‘warm-up’ against Maidenhead, we got started straight away. They played their usual 1-2-3 formation at reception and 3-1-2 in defence. Our blocking was up to a high level and so they struggled to make their points, while we defended well. At 15-7 ahead, we continued at cruise control to win the set 25-15. As usual, the second set was a closer affair. Our blocking and defence remained good, and we were up one or two points most of the set. At 17-17, it went pretty much point for point and 24-24 we made the side out and, with some good work on the net, we won the next point to win 26-24 and the match 2-0. MVP as voted by them: Martijn!

(written by Martijn)