Following their victory over local rivals Perth at the North Inch Campus last 
week, Kinross hosted Linlithgow Hornets at their home venue, Loch Leven Campus, on Monday evening.
Kinross were without influential setter Ger Kirk and outside hitter Roy Munro but still fielded a strong side against their Linlithgow opponents. Linlithgow were fresh from their weekend success in the Edinburgh District League and fielded the Singh brothers and newcomer John Evenden, a tall outside hitter.
Kinross opened brightly in the first set with John Booth and Kieran Small scoring freely through the middle before Linlithgow got to grips and started scoring from their own attacks through zone four. Despite coming more into the game, Linlilthgow failed to match Kinross at the net with the home side winning 25-18.
Kinross changed theiir line-up for the second set with Ruari Souter and John Cameron coming on as outside hitters replacing Craig Donaldson and Jamie Booth with Carlo Fiorentini replacing second setter Andrew Hutchison. Dave Mackay replaced John Booth as middle hitter for the home side. Daniel Doyle of Linlithgow made some good blocks against the Kinross middle hitters to give them a chance of taking the set and level the match. Linlithgow’s Evenden was also finding his range and his hits from zone four were now much more effective. This set was much closer than the first with Kinross coming from behind to edge victory by 27 points to 25.
Tbe third set saw Kinross gain control and run out fairly comfortable winners by 25 points to 16.
The fourth set saw Linlithgow win 25-21 to round off a busy evening.
This result sees Kinross sit at the top of the East Central Scotland Regional League.
Perth and Linlithgow are due to meet over the next fortnight and that should be a very close game.
David Munro
secretary
Kinross V.C.