UEL Defeat Champions To Continue Perfect Start

Adonis Konstantinou reports on the UEL Volleyball Men's Team's impressive victory over last season's Premier South League Champions Bournemouth.

UEL Volleyball Coach Ian Legrand speaks to his players

The University of East London’s Men’s Volleyball Team continued their perfect start in the BUCS Premier South League as they defeated last season’s Champions Bournemouth University in straight sets at the SportsDock.

Prior to the match, UEL were looking to complete a second consecutive home league victory to cement their position at the top of the table and achieved it against a very competitive opponent in Bournemouth, who triumphed 2-0 over UEL in the last meeting between the two sides in March at the BUCS Super 8s Championship.

Taking Example

Bournemouth’s Captain praised the hosts’ commitment and compared it with his own side’s lack of team experience, suggesting that Bournemouth need to improve on the training court.

“UEL is a great team, [and it] shows how much work they have done in the last couple of weeks. We did not do a lot of work, it is only been two weeks that we are together as a team, it showed in the court that we need more work, but we have to go forward.”

Bournemouth, like UEL, won their opening fixture (a narrow 3 sets to 2 victory against Essex) and came to the Sports Dock with great momentum.

The visitors fought hard, with the difference in scores incredibly close, with one-point-margins throughout the first two sets of the match, which UEL ultimately won 25-23 and 25-22 respectively.

However in the third set, which proved to be the deciding set of the game, the hosts won more convincingly 25-16, courtesy of some amazing spikes and an incredible block at match point.

‘Big Teams’

Austen Lovett the middle blocker of UEL, who made some crucial blocks in the game, was pleased with the side’s performance and margin of victory against Bournemouth, who he deemed as one of the ‘big teams’.

Lovett said: “[It’s] Pretty important to win the first home game and second consecutive against one of the top teams in the league. Beating 3-0 one of the big teams is a massive achievement and I am very happy.

“I am pretty sure in program history we never beat Bournemouth by 3-0. The opponent had some very good beach volleyball players.”

UEL’s Austen Lovett goes up for a spike against Bournemouth.

On The Road

UEL’s next match on Wednesday 25th October, sees the side play their first away match in the league against Oxford University’s First team. The match is due to take place at the Sports Hall, with UEL hoping to win a third consecutive victory in the Premier South League.

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