Volley Ball: Edinburgh close in on title after thriller at Bon Accord

CITY OF EDINBURGH are just two wins away from their first men's Schelde Sports Scottish Volleyball League title after reaching the final of the play-offs.

The Capital side, who went through the regular league season undefeated, beat Bon Accord home and away over the weekend but had to survive a match point against them in the second leg in Aberdeen.

Edinburgh cruised through the first leg 25-16, 25-14, 25-20 but then trailed by two sets in yesterday's return leg.

After levelling the match, the final set went all the way to the wire with Bon Accord leading 14-13 at one stage before Edinburgh came back to clinch victory 20-25, 25-27, 26-24, 25-18, 16-14. It avoided the need for a third and decisive leg this weekend and Edinburgh now face Kilmarnock in a best-of-three series for the title. Player-coach Barry McGuigan admitted the recent Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Glasgow Ragazzi hit the team hard.

"The second half of the season has been tough having to manage a relatively small squad of players that have been hit continually with injury and illness," he said. "We battled through and went 20 matches undefeated but I'm not going to deny that going out of the cup was a major blow to our campaign.

"The Ragazzi match just left us a little reminder that work is still to be done and we are not invincible. We have to play at our best at all times if we are to reach our potential.

"There are still a couple of injury worries but at the start of the season I put together a team that could win this league and I know if we perform to the best of our ability no-one will stop us."