Second match day (Ljungby)

The team is ready to go for the next set

Last Sunday (24/10), it was time for some volleyball matches again for the Gothia Herr C team in Div 3 Södra Herrar. We still didn't get a lot of training together but were highly motivated to show our best and play some good matches against our two opponents Ljungby and Karlskrona. Our team - this time fully loaded on all positions - consisting of Abe, Elias, Georgios R., Pierlo, Emilio, Georgios S. and Trent was heading out to Ljungby. 

After arrival, we got to see the very exciting and tight game between Ljungby and Karlskrona while our coach was practicing his referee skills. Due to an injury of a player from Karlskrona, we switched our matches and first faced the host - Ljungby.

We started slightly nervous and our opponents showed a good flow of the ball. We could point with great blocks but lacked the decisiveness in the attacks. Staying close early in the set, we fell behind several points which we could not catch up to ending in a 17:25 loss of set 1. Slightly discouraged and demoralized, we fell a bit apart in the second set and couldn't find a way back in the game falling behind 10 points right from the beginning. We lost 10:25 and a lot of encouraging words were needed before set 3. There, we kept closer to our opponents, showing some good serves and putting even some pressure with attacks over the right side. At the end, we were a bit too nervous and discouraged by our mistakes finishing the first game 0:3 (17:25, 10:25, 14:25) - not the result we hoped for. 

The last game of the day was played against Karlskrona and while they managed to beat Ljungby 3:2, we hoped for a better chance against them as one player was not at full capacity after the earlier injury and the team was mixed between youngsters and 2 more experienced players. We managed to stay close pointwise and got several nice serve sequences and great blocks in to build up pressure. Half way through set 1, we pulled away and secured our first set-win of the season (25:17). Happy and maybe a bit too confident, we started good in the second set until the nervousness from the first match came back and strong serves from our opponents side put more and more pressure on us. Balls started to drop in the field and our serve-receives became worse ending the set with a 7 points streak for our opponents (13:25). The match became a mental challenge to overcome the fear of mistakes and play easy three touch volleyball. In set 3 we started with 5 strong serves and got ahead right away just to get caught again shortly after with a 6 point series of our opponent. While we kept up better, we lost the battle more against ourselves as many unforced errors occurred. The 4th set was where we wanted to make it better again. Falling behind early, we pulled ourselves together and managed to pull ahead by a tiny margin at the end even getting to a set-ball. However, the inexperience of game situations and nervousness really got to us and we lost the game 1:3 (25:17, 13:25, 20:25, 24:26). We still managed to increase the points every set we lost and did not leave without a hard fight.

Next game will come and we are trying to get more security in our plays and courage to keep cool in tight situations.

Coach Thomas