Janet Bedford 2010 Cup Final 13th June
Brentwood Divas 3 Chelmsford Women 1 25-16,
24-26, 26-24, 25-21
Player of the match Claudia Lambert.
Two Chelmsford teams reached Essex finals played last Sunday but both lost narrowly to home sides from Brentwood where the matches were held. In the Janet Bedford Women’s final the ladies were beaten 3-1 but not without putting the national league team on the other side of the net under considerable pressure. In the Tachikara plate, Chelmsford men recovered from a miserable first set to take the lead 2-1 before a Brentwood recovery took them to the title 3 sets to 2.
The women’s cup final was a repeat of the League Cup final pitting Brentwood Divas against Chelmsford women. Chelmsford’s usual line up of Rachel Bohannan (capt), Claudia Lambert, Anna Szafraniec, Julia Lapham was missing several players with Emily Kearney calling off due to illness on the day. Drafted in at short notice Skye Hunt, Elisabeth Bohannan, Charlotte Mower and Carole Thorpe were to make a real difference. Despite lack of training time together the Chelmsford team started brightly and played well in defence with Hunt sometimes surprising herself with great positional play. However, as a team they had no real answer to the outside attack of the powerful Brentwood team who took the set 25-16. Chelmsford changed line up for set 2 and great support for each other saw the team took an early lad. Each time they were pegged back, Lambert through the middle found a gap to get serve back and in a tense and close finish Chelmsford held their nerve to take the set 26-24.
Set three was equally competitive with several excellent blocks from Lambert and the combined height from Mower and E Bohannan. The combinations forced attacking errors for the home team who had to rely on points scored from the service line to stay in touch. Another close finish just escaped Chelmsford again 26-24 but this time the wrong way. Although the Chelmsford players scrapped well through the fourth set they could not quite keep up the pace. Thorpe came on to play a cameo role of steady serving and solid net play but this was not enough as the set and match slipped away 25-21. Coach Edwards said afterwards ‘ This was an excellent competitive game worthy of a final and I know my counterpart was picking out a few grey hairs right up to the final whistle. These girls have been a wonderful example of supporting team play and can be proud of the way they played’