WEYMOUTH 2

TAMWORTH SPARTANS 3

WEYMOUTH finished their National League Division One Season with a dramatic 3-2 loss to Tamworth Spartans at Redlands.

Weymouth started the match playing some of their best volleyball since before Christmas.

Powerful attacking play by Tom Lycett and James Bibby was matched by sound service receive from Liam Tewkesbury and Elliott Sawyer.

Weymouth pulled out to lead 24-16 but then a few careless mistakes nearly let Tamworth back in before the Seasiders hung on to win 25-20.

READ MORE: Tamworth Spartans 2-3 Weymouth - report

Weymouth started the second set in confident mood and again pulled out a strong lead which they held for most of the set before again giving away a few careless points to let Tamworth back into the game and Weymouth only just clung on to secure a 25-23 success.

The third set again saw Weymouth start well, gaining a 6-1 lead with the middle blockers Darren Harding and Josh Turner for Weymouth managing to prevent a lot of Tamworth attacks.

However, from this point Weymouth’s attack seemed to lose some of its effect as Tamworth started to defend more strongly and build attacks of their own.

Tamworth slowly pulled back the deficit, taking the lead at 21-19 and never looking back to win the set 25-21.

Weymouth’s loss of strength in depth since Christmas began to show as they went into the fourth set unable to make any effective changes to the line-up and Tamworth were now beginning to read the Weymouth attack and looking more powerful themselves.

A couple of controversial refereeing decisions had also seemed to spark Tamworth into life and they comfortably won the fourth set 25-15.

That set up a dramatic finale in which it was so important to get off to a good start and two serving errors from Weymouth gave Tamworth this advantage and Weymouth could never close the gap, eventually lose 15-10.

Post-match, coach Stuey Jeanes said: “We are really disappointed to lose that match having led 2-0 and with a bit of luck we could have won 3-0 but considering we have almost got a completely new team on court compared to before Christmas it was a great effort and should encourage us during the summer break.”

The defeat means Weymouth finish a creditable sixth, having been second in January before the loss of key players.