Top derby @Göteborg

Gothia B ladies at the end of a long match

Last Sunday (20/02) one of the season highlights was awaiting us at Idrottshögskolan, Göteborg when the Gothia B Ladies faced the only other undefeated team of division 3 mellersta damer - Kungälv. The third team present was recently played against Karlstad C. We had our full squad with Federica, Matilda, Caroline, Merima, Hannah, Maria, Eva and Chiara.

We started our first game against Karlstad C who we played just a week before in Karlstad. Although, we dominated the game similarly our opponent managed to get more balls back over the net and seemed better organized this time. We still won comfortably all sets 3:0 (25:10, 25:11, 25:4). Solid game play and good receptions allowed our setter and (one) player of the match Hanna to put nice balls up for spikes and tips. Good blocks and hits came from the our other player of the match Caroline (middle).

The second game was the highlight of the season so far as we faced our strongest competitor from Kungälv. Both our teams have won all their games so far and we were very excited to play a strong team with lots of young and talented players. After watching them beat Karlstad C comfortably, we were impressed and maybe slightly intimidated especially by the strong spiking. Nevertheless, the Gothia ladies stayed calm and concentrated and we started strong with good serves and well hit spikes. We had to fight hard for every point and many balls were picked up and hit back at us. In the first set, we stayed leveled and even pulled away a few points. However, the strong and hard serves challenged our receivers and mistakes increased the stress level extensively. The set was lost eventually 20:25. Running behind the first time was putting quite some pressure on our team. We tried to fight back in the second set but our opponents had very strong serves and spikes and picked up many balls that we sometimes played over the net too easy. Several sequences put us behind and we fell short again losing 18:25. The third set became already a little final and suddenly we managed to get some ace serves in and pressured our opponents to make more mistakes. Especially, Merima - our libero - grew into this match and started picking up balls from the floor giving us the chance to get more attacks in. We managed to pull away five points from the beginning but gave our opponents the opportunity to catch up again in the middle of the set. At the end, we managed to stay in the game and won with a tight margin 25:23. The newly gained energy gave us hope and we started energetic in a very exciting 4th set. Several long ralleys in front of a decent crowd of supporters were nail-biting to watch. A long jump serve sequence made us pull away in the middle of the set and we kept the distance until the end winning 25:17. The first time playing a fifth set and after two behind suddenly in reach of the match win, we were somewhere between excited and stressed. The strong serves got us stuck again and after a few points behind, we lost our focus and our nerves and at the end also the game very tight 2:3 (20:25, 18:25, 25:23, 25:17, 10:15).

I looked in exhausted and sad faces but have to say that we put up an excellent fight and the most exciting game for the many supporters of this day. At the end, the stress got to us but we can learn more out of our loss than from wins and there is another chance when we play against each other at the end of the season in Kungälv.

Next game will come in two week on 06/03/2022 here in Göteborg (Valhalla hallen C)!

Coach Thomas