The Bulls go head-to-head with Spikeos 1...

To make the score easy to read, Oxford points are always indicated first.

After our warm up during the first game, we were ready (but a bit cold because we had to referee in an igloo) for our last game of the day against Spikeopaths 1! The coach decided that it was time to deploy our secret weapon, aka drunk Marcin P (in his defence, he did say that he didn’t plan to get drunk…). He joined the squad to replace Corne (the squad now comprising Seb, Marco, Anders, Marcin P., Dan and myself, with Ghislain as libero), and we started serving (after a great call from the captain at the coin toss…). The game started neck to neck, and carried one during the first half of the set with the score never being more than 2 points difference, and each team leading in turn. Lots of great attacks from the Bulls thanks to some of the best passing we had for a long time (in great part thanks to Dan) and hence a happy Seb. But we never managed to leave Spikeos in the dust because of the resignation not to drop a ball (but also because of too many serving mistakes…). Samantha decided to arm the team with our next and last secret weapon: a not drunk Marcin S.(!), giving a rest to Dan for all his great defence. The set carried on with a very tight score up to 20-21, when in our normal fashion, we slowed down and Spikeos took the first set 20-25. 

Despite the first defeat, we were encouraged to see that we could keep up with them and decided that we could win this game. With the same squad we went out on the court and give them the best. Again a tight game but with great attack from everyone, the Polish power, some great middle blocks, Ghislain mopping the floor, great decisions from Seb and even tipping (!), we were leading the game up to 18-15. However Spikeos were not giving up and came back neck to neck with us, for a few nervous last points; 21-20, 24-21, 24-25, 26-26. After a couple of last minutes time out (24-25, 26-26)., Marcin S. and myself decided to change the rules of the game and we both hit two magnificent balls straight into the net. Sadly no one else was aware of the change of rules, and these two points were given to the opposite team, leaving the Bulls unsatisfied with a 26-28 defeat. We will be ready for next time!

Written by Simon