VE U16 girls Grand Prix Tier 2, Round 2 Pool B

Venue: The Kings CE School, Regis Road, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton. WV6 8XG

Teams involved: Wirral, Sheffield, Newcastle Staffs A&B, Nottingham Rockets, Black Country B&C, Athena Celeste, Darkstar Vipers.

Format: Two pools of four, followed by play-offs - 1st A v 1st B, 2nd A v 2nd B...etc

Pool A results: 

Wirral vs Athena  - won 2-0, 25-5, 25-10

Wirral vs NSVC B - won 2-0, 

Wirral vs Black Country B - won 2-0, 25-14, 25-12

As winners of Pool A wirrla then played off against the winners of Pool B

Wirral vs Darkstar - lost 0-2, 16-25, 23-25

This was an outstanding performance from our U16 Girls. After winning all 3 games comfortably in what proved to be much the weakest pool our girls qualified for the first place play-off against Darkstar from Leicester. 5-0 down in a few minutes and we knew we were in a game. To their credit the team came back fighting and managed to level the scores at 7-7 before falling behind. The second set was another story, 

Lucy gave us a lead with some steady serving and, despite some ups and downs we maintained it to 22-19, then, with a third set imminent and with time running out on the venue booking Darkstar managed to put a run of serves together and, really for the first time in the set, our girls made some unforced errors and the game slipped away. It had been a tremendous effort against a very strong team, we’d served reliably and occasionally with inspiration,  stopping them getting their powerful attack into the game, we’d passed much better than them and given Ella and Kate a lot of good ball to work with, and we’d won our battles on the net tipping and blocking effectively with Nicky and Kate outjumping everyone, but we couldn’t quite get over the line ….this time….

Our girls really gave it a go, pushing a strong opposition team to the limit in a great game that had both players and spectators on their feet and in full voice. Every member of  our squad could come away with their head high knowing they’d put in a good shift.