Volleyball: York strike back for win (From York Press)

Volleyball: York strike back for win

10:11am Saturday 22nd September 2012 in Sport

York’s new-look men’s team kicked off their new season in division three of the National Volleyball League with home triangular fixtures against Kingsthorpe, from Northampton, and Nottingham Rockets’ second team.

It turned out to be a mixed opening day, as York, with five debutants, recovered from a straight sets defeat to Kingsthorpe to pip a young Rockets side in a five-set thriller.

Nottingham opened up an early lead and went on to take the first set 25-20, but York responded in the second.

New signing Mike Head played impressively through the middle to help his side take the set 25-22.

Nottingham retook the lead with a relatively comfortable 25-17 victory in the third and York found themselves staring defeat in the face trailing 10-6 in the fourth.

However, the home side took five straight points on the serve of Karol Krajewski, another new recruit, to power into the lead, before Adam Meszczynski, who has rejoined York from division one outfit Boathouse Dewsbury, finished off the set at 25-16 with a jump-serve ace.

They were forced to come from behind in the final set too, and had to defend a match point before Meszczynski put away the final point to give his side a 19-17 win in the tie-break set, and the victory overall.

The hard-fought win was in stark contrast to the earlier defeat to Kingsthorpe.

York’s players often found themselves confused and out of position in their opening encounter, and never really looked in the game as they went down 25-12 25-19 25-15 to the men from Northampton.

York, who also brought in German Georgiev, a Bulgarian student, and gave a debut to Dinos Stogiosa, will hope to rectify the defeat as they travel to Kingsthorpe for their next NVL fixture on September 30.