LONDON ACES 3

WEYMOUTH 1

WEYMOUTH Volleyball Club’s men’s team were defeated 3-1 by London Aces in their latest National League Division One match.

While their long trip was ultimately fruitless, considering the changes the team have under gone in the last two months and that Aces are chasing promotion Weymouth will not be too disappointed with the result.

On top of two key players moving out of the area, Weymouth have now lost captain and setter Ryan Stout who has moved to Thailand for a year.

Added to this, they went into this match with two other key players Elliott Sawyer and Michael Wahl still out injured, both with ankle ligament problems.

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However, this gave an opportunity to Josh Turner who came into make his debut, Jamie Keates had the chance to establish himself as the team’s number one setter and 17-year-old Harry Aplin continued in the libero role.

Not surprisingly with all the changes Weymouth got off to a slow start and slipped 11-4 behind but from this point Weymouth began to get more organized. Teenager Tom Lycett’s powerful attacking play brought Weymouth slowly back into the set although London Aces were able to hang on to take the set 25-21.

The second set again saw Weymouth competing closely with Aces and this time it was Sam Groom playing as an outside hitter for the first time who dominated the Weymouth attack but overall Aces just had the edge in the crucial points and ran out winners 25-18.

The third set saw Weymouth at their best as they became more consistent with accurate setting from Keates and were able to dominate the rallies, winning the set 25-21.

However the fourth set saw London Aces come back with powerful attacking and serving of their own, which meant it was difficult for Weymouth to maintain the standard of the previous set and Aces ran out winners 25-18 to take the match 3-1.

Next up for Weymouth is an away trip to Cambridge next Saturday.