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Essex Women's League Cup Final Chelmsford Women lost to Brentwood Women 1-3. Set scores 14-25, 20-25,
25-22, 17-25 Chelmsford Women unable to topple Brentwood The Essex Women’s League Cup Final saw old foes pitted against each other in Chelmsford and Brentwood who played out an entertaining final on Wednesday Night at the Brentwood International Centre. Brentwood prevailed 3-1 showing their strength and national league experience to good effect. After running Brentwood close in a match a few weeks ago, Chelmsford travelled to the International Centre with dreams of an upset. However the fates said otherwise. They knew they were to be without international player Larissa Feuchtmueller who had returned to Germany after a period of study at Anglia Ruskin University. Unfortunately other late withdrawals by more local players left the Chelmsford squad further depleted and with a mix up over travel losing another, coach Edwards was left with little option over the line up. The first set saw the Brentwood team, sprinkled with National league players, well in command in serving and at the net taking it 25-14 with Chelmsford hardly in the match until the later rallies. There were better things in set two as Emily Kearney and Anna Szafraniec hit some excellent cross court balls whilst Claudia Lambert was the rock on which the defence was built picking up ball after ball, often at full stretch. The problem facing Chelmsford was the power of the fast flat serving from Lorraine Bartlett and Claire McAlister which was worth a few points whenever they came to the service line. This edge was enough to see the home side through 25-20. Led by the exhortations of captain Rachel Bohannan, Chelmsford upped their game in set three and used Lambert in the middle as well as Kearney and Szafraniec on the outside. Natalie Schultze raced around to set the ball up and Lambert’s blocking was also frustrating the Brentwood attackers. When Bohannan showed what could be achieved with a one on one stuff block of Bartlett, the team were inspired to give their best taking the set 25-22 to peg Brentwood back to 2-1. Set four however was Brentwood’s for as the Chelmsford players tired, the home side had made good use of their subs and were able to field some fresh faces. Chelmsford were always in touch but yet again it was McAlister and Bartlett at the service line that were their undoing going down 25-17 after being well in touch at 16-13. Chelmsford’s player of the match was Claudia Lambert although in fairness everyone put in a good evenings work. Speaking later coach Edwards commented ‘ After a poor start, the girls responded really well and I feel if we had a full squad we might at least have pushed Brentwood into a deciding fifth set. Whilst the Brentwood girls train and play week in week out over the lower ladies height net for the National league, we often train with club session over the men’s net so sometimes our players don’t hit and block the balls they could do. This is something for us to look at for next season and we will quickly get a second shot at them in the Janet Bedford Women’s Cup Final on 13th June – so we are plotting to get the last laugh for the season!’ |