25 Apr 2024
NVL Women's play-offs preview: Lionhearts and Stockport ready to fight for Super League spot
The highest profile of the women’s fixtures, with a scheduled first serve of 12.30pm (provided the previous match does not overrun), is the intriguing battle for a place in the MAAREE Women’s Super League for the 2024-25 season.
It pitches the ninth-place team in this year’s top tier, London Lionhearts, against the team who finished second in NVL Division 1, Stockport – and promises to be an absolute cracker.
Despite a largely disappointing season overall, the Lionhearts come into this do-or-die showdown in decent form, having won their final two matches of the regular season campaign to haul themselves off the foot of the table and give themselves the chance of pulling off a great escape.
First, in their penultimate game of the season, the Londoners held their nerve against Darkstar Derbyshire to win two sets by just two points to clinch win and tee up a relegation decider against Coventry and Warwick Riga.
There, Lionhearts never looked back after battling hard to take the opening set 25-19, winning the next two 25-12, 25-23 at the Mulberry Shoreditch Academy to leapfrog their opponents and tee up their play-off date.
After that, the Dark Blues and Blacks played Durham, who finished with a record of only losing one league match all season, and, even though they were defeated, they were not disgraced, taking a set off the defending champions.
It means that the team are in decent fettle for what is sure to be a testing match against a Stockport team who have become well accustomed to winning this season.
“The start of the season was definitely rough, but we have stabilised a lot since then and it is nice to come into this important match on the back of a couple of wins,” said setter Grace Yang (pictured above).
“We were in Stockport’s position this time last year so we know how they want it, but having played at that level this season ourselves, we want to stay where we are.
“Having played Darkstar and Coventry and Riga in quick succession at the end of the season, and now Stockport, it means we have pretty much had three must-win games in a row.
“We got the job done in the other two and now there is just one more to go. There was a lot of pressure on that Coventry game, but we played really well and came together as a team.
“Now we need to stay focused and make sure we don’t underestimate them, which I don’t think any of us will. We have learned a lot this season and we want to stay at the higher level because it’s much better winning less games and being tested week in, week out, than winning lots but getting nothing from it.”
Grace grew up in Texas, taking up volleyball from the age of 11. She played for a local club up to going to high school and watched the university of Texas at Austin play in the NCAA Championships.
After the Covid-19 Pandemic she moved to London and, in looking for an activity where she could make new friends, got back into the game.
After finishing as London Premier League champions, she feels that staying in Super League would be the perfect end to the season.
Grace, who competes with Gabi Nobrega Grissi Cardoso for minutes on the court, said: “I have really enjoyed it with the Lionhearts over the last couple of seasons and, for me personally, it would be a great achievement if we could win this weekend and show that we deserve to be in Super League.
“We might not have started off that well, but we feel like things have started to come together and we want another crack at it to put into practice what we now know.”
For their part, Stockport have mixed emotions about finishing the season to runners-up to Wessex in the Division One title race, four points behind the eventual winners, but having been in contention until the final weekend.
Having worked their way up from Division 3, the team has experienced a meteoric rise in recent seasons and knew that they were likely to find it that bit tougher having reached this point in the pyramid.
However, having come so close to automatic promotion, they were left to rue what might have been and have needed to pick themselves up to go again in this play-off fixture.
“I have been with the team for three years now as we have moved through the divisions, but I think this has been our best year in terms of development,” said the Greater Manchester club’s outside, Milana Kovalevska (pictured above).
“We struggled early on but by November and December we had got out full team and coaching team together and we are in as strong a position as we ever have been.
“We have had our ups and downs during the course of the season because it has been a strong division with some good teams. There are some games we have lost where we should have won and others where we thought we wouldn't win but we did, so it is not easy.
“Of course we wanted direct promotion having been up at the top for a long time, but overall we have to be satisfied with what we have achieved.
“We lost the game against Wessex at the end of the season, but at least we still have another chance for promotion in the play-offs.
“We have analysed some of the Lionhearts games, but it is really hard to say how it is going to go once we get out on the court. It can be totally different to how you might expect once you are on the other side of the net, but we will give it our best shot.”
Milana learned her volleyball in her home country of Latvia, training five times a week and then playing at the weekends during her younger days.
Coming to England to study in Manchester at the age of 18, having played for her national junior side, she was not expecting to be able to carry on playing, so was pleasantly surprised by what she discovered.
Milana added: “To be honest, I didn’t know there was any volleyball in England before I came here, I thought I might have to give it up.
“When I find out you could play, it was really exciting and I played for a few clubs before moving to Stockport. It’s been great here, experiencing two promotions.
“For me, it would be a very high achievement if we could get in the Super League, one of the highest you could have here in the UK. It would be very exciting to play at the top level, but we know we would need to put in a lot more hard work so that we would be ready.
“But first we have to win this next match before we can think about any of that.”
The clash between Lionhearts and Stockport is not the only NVL play-off to be taking place on Saturday in the women’s competition, with two other matches scheduled.
First on court, from 10.30am, will be the match between Cambridge (Division Three South East) and Portsmouth Urbond (Division 3 South West), with the winners moving into Division 2 next season.
Cambridge have put together an impressive campaign, losing only three of their 16 league fixtures, but found themselves unfortunate to be pitted in the same division as Onyx, who went through the entire season unbeaten.
Two of their three defeats came against the London side (both 3-1) and their only other setback came against third-placed Reading Aces in a five-set thriller.
Otherwise, the Cambridge team proved to be a force to be reckoned with in their nine-team division, winning 42 sets and losing only 12 of them.
Urbond, meanwhile, made a late charge towards the play-offs, edging out Plymouth UTV in the final round of fixtures to clinch second place behind Cheltenham and Gloucester with an overall record of 9-3.
They were able to leapfrog the Devon club in the final round of matches after beating them 3-0 and Southampton 2 by the same score in a triangular.
The other fixture, again for a place in Division 2, pairs Hull Thunder (Division 3 North) with Newcastle Staffs (Division 3 Central), which has a scheduled start of 2.30pm.
The Humberside team registered a strong finish to their campaign to finish runners-up to runaway champions The Miners, Doncaster, who finished a full 11 points clear.
They ended their season with triangular 3-1 victories over Chester Amazons and, crucially, York Falcons, who were also in the hunt for a play-off berth.
Newcastle Staffs have only lost twice in league matches this season, but could not get the better of another unbeaten team, Black Country, in the race for the title.
Having finished with five straight sets successes in a row, the West Midlands club are hoping to emulate their men's 2 side, who have already secured promotion from Division 3 North West.
Click here to view the full play-off fixture schedule (scroll down for fixtures).
Please note that games may not start at the specified time and may be later if previous games overrun.
Men’s play-offs preview
Four matches will also take place in the men’s competition – one on Saturday and three on Sunday.
The preview for those matches can be viewed by clicking here.
NVL play-offs streaming
Don't forget the NVL play-offs will be streamed live from the Ashcombe Volleyball Centre, with four matches on Saturday and three on Sunday.
Click here to access via the Volleyball England YouTube Channel.
Find out more and follow the action
View fixtures, results and tables for the NVL by clicking here and follow across social media on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
