Tonight it was yet another home match of a hectic match schedule, this time for the Men’s 2 team.  We were hosting top of the table Emerson Eagles 2 in a crucial match for the title.  A big win for us would see us close the gap to a single point and we’d have a game in hand.

The line up for the night was:-
Darran / Leo
Andy / Ross
Ahmed / Sohail

We didn’t get off to a great start by playing the wrong pairs for the first games – Darran and Leo going on against their second pair and me and Andy going on against their first pair.  However, we got on with it.

Darran and Leo didn’t get a good start and slipped to a 13-21 loss but dusted themselves off and came back in the second, only narrowly losing 19-12.

Meanwhile, myself and Andy were on against their first pair.  Despite starting strong, the game slipped away from us and we went down 13-21 in the first.  The second was a lot better and a lot closer and we should have won it but some silly unforced errors meant we dropped the game 19-21 to make it 0-2 on the night.

Ahmed and Sohail went on next against their third pair and did us proud, winning comfortably 21-13, 21-13.

Next up, Andy and I were on against their second pair while Darran and Leo went on against their first pair.

Andy and I started strong and finally seemed to get into gear winning comfortably 21-15 which felt good.  However, we seemed to go to pot in the next one losing 16-21 and then had a complete disaster in the decider, losing 11-12 to make it 1-3 on the night and an uphill struggle.

Darran and Leo appeared to be doing well on the other court but they came off losing 12-21,15-21 which didn’t seem as close as the game appeared to be.  It was now 1-4 on the night and Eagles had secured 1 league point.

Mine and Andy’s final game was against their third pair and it was a close run affair.  We were slipping to another defeat as we were 12-19 down at one point when Andy came in to serve.  A quick blitz of points and we were at 19-19 before another mistake gave them the serve on 19-20.  However, we saved that point and went on to win the game 21-20.  After that we went on to get a bit stronger (despite Andy feeling worse – looks like a cold or flu) and win 21-18 to make it 2-4 on the night.

Ahmed and Sohail went on for their next match against Eagles’ second pair needing to get a result to stay in the match.  They did us proud and ran out 21-17, 21-15 winners to make it 3-4 on the night and gave us a glimmer of hope for a result.

Ahmed and Sohail were straight back on for their last match of the night against the first pair from Eagles, which was always going to be a tough match.  Unfortunately, despite some great rallies, our guys slipped to a 17-21, 16-21 loss to make it 3-5 on the night and Eagles had secured their second league point.

The bonus point was still up for grabs and it fell to Darran and Leo in their last match against Eagles’ third pair.  Confidence was high and it showed as the lads were playing really well tonight and they cruised to a 21-13, 21-13 win to make it 4-5 on the night and secured a bonus point for us.

We still sit in third place in the league, level on games played with Eagles 3 but only 1 point behind.  We’re 5 points behind first place Eagles 2 with a game in hand.

Well done tonight lads, sorry we couldn’t get the result we needed – it just wasn’t to be.  Next match is in 2 weeks at home to Amigos 1 then 2 weeks after that we host Eagles 3.

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