Last Sunday, Hull Thunder National League team kicked off their season with a Nation Cup 1st Round clash against Division 2 side Sheffield VC 2.
In a highly competitive encounter Thunder can count themselves unlucky to suffer a 1-3 defeat as the score line didn’t tell the full story.
The first 3 sets showed how hard the Hull players had been working in preseason as they more then held there own against higher opposition, leading the first set up to 21-17 before an excellent run of serves from the young Sheffield setter, singlehandedly brought Sheffield back level. Once the momentum had swung in Sheffield’s favour Hull couldn’t quite finish the set strong enough and lost it 25-23.
In the 2nd Set an effervescent Hull Thunder went out and blasted the Sheffield, leading in to both technical time outs. With some big hits from middle Ellis Todd and some clever hitting by Adam Kupka the thunder went on to win 25-18.
With the teams level pegging going in to the 3rd set, it was nip and tuck with neither team managing to pull away and get a foot hold in the set. It went to the wire and at 23-23 the division 2 side showed their class and punished 2 mistakes by Hull and took the set 23-25.
The 4th set saw the Thunder look to their bench in need of some defensive players and servers. H. Ho and O.Shema where both brought on to add some calmness into defence and a solid serve in an attempt to force the 5th set. But as the way this set went both started with service errors and the game was nearly beyond hull by the first technical timeout going in 8-2 down. With the momentum fully with the Sheffield side they took the game by the scruff of the net and punished the Hull team lacking match practice and ran out 25-15 winners in the set, taking the game 3-1.
After the game Coach Pipes was pragmatic in defeat saying “the first round of the cup was great game to test out our new players and get some game mins into the players. The preparation through preseason was good but we just lacked a quality team or 2 to play in friendlies. Onwards and upwards for the season ahead where we will look for automatic promotion”.
We’d like to thank Sheffield VC for a tough game and wish them every luck in the next round.