Saints Fight Back to Win Five Set Thriller

The Saints have endured a hard start to the season but put an end to their 3 match losing streak with a hard fought five set victory over Aberdeen. In comparison, Aberdeen have enjoyed a good start to their season having won 2 of their 3 games and were coming into the game full of confidence. However, it was the Saints who came away with the win filling them with confidence ahead of a busy weekend of games. Set one showed how evenly matched the teams were, with the two teams trading points for much of the set. The Saints passing was on top form which helped setter Juan Mendoza, making his Saints debut, pick out the hitters in all positions. The middle hitting from Callum Stewart and Dorian Stonewas looking to be a decisive factor. However, the Aberdeen outsides were finding space to the sides of the Saints block and were exploiting to keep themselves in the set. The Saints defence proved to be the stronger, with excellent pick-ups from Dorian Stone, and took the first set 25-23.

Aberdeen came out the stronger in set two and caught the Saints off guard. The middle hitting seemed to be stopped as Aberdeen moved their big outside hitter, Alex Davidson, into middle getting several blocks. With the confidence growing in the Aberdeen team, the Saints heads began to drop and ultimately lost the set 25-14. After some stern words from coach Colin Paterson, the Saints came back out fighting in the third set. Two changes were made from the second set with offsetter Kevin Dibb moving to outside andJohnny Matejczyk taking his place as offsetter. After a shaky start, the boys fought back to level scores at 12-12 with some solid serving from Callum Stewart. However, the confidence Aberdeen had gained from the previous set began to show as they started to pull ahead. Unable to stop the momentum Aberdeen had, the Saints found themselves a set down losing the third 25-20. Staying with the same six from set 3, the Saints came out in the fourth set flying taking an early 5-1 lead. However, the Aberdeen middle, Alex Davidson, was proving to be a problem for the Saints as he continued to hit past the block and win points. The Saints outside Callum Moir had other ideas though as came up with some big hits down the line late in the set to give the Saints enough momentum to win the set 25-22 take the game to a deciding set. The deciding set proved to be just as exciting as the rest with both teams again trading points. However, the Saints managed to sneak 2 points clear and win the race to 8 before the change of sides. The second half of the set continued off where the first left off with both teams siding out. With the Saints 12-10 up and Aberdeen to serve, the Saints made a change with Matt Shaw coming on for Kevin Dibb to help give the Saints back court some stability. It proved to be a good decision from the Saints coach as they sided out at the first time of asking with middle Callum Stewart finding the floor in position 1 with a big hit. Aberdeen had another chance to pull level winning the serve back but the serve proved to be wasteful as it flew out the back to give Saints match point. Saints middle,Dorian Stone, stepped up to be the Saints hero by going out to block the Aberdeen outside giving the Aberdeen libero no chance of picking it up to win the set 15-11.