Turbulent Match day @Home

Gothia C Team happy after the matches

Last Sunday (27/02), Gothia C had their last home match day for the in Div 3 Södra Herrar. We were facing two top teams - Örkelljunga B and Halmstad B here in Göteborg. The day didn't start so well as we figured out that our designated playing hall was occupied. Luckily, we managed to quickly shift to play in Santoshallen @Lindholmen where our Gothia A team had an exciting match that we got to watch for a while before we took the court. Our squad consisting of Georgios R., Abe, Erik, Elias, Shi, Emilio, Pierlo, Victor, Jarl, Trent and Georgios S.

In the first match, we were facing Örkelljunga with a setup of mostly young but tall players. We managed to stay focused from the beginning and gained confidence from the errors of our opponents. Our defense was strong and especially blocks against their strong attacks prevented our opponents to gain the upper hand. A few good attacks from our side made the difference and we managed to very tightly win the first set 26:24. The boost in moral and confidence was taken into the next set and we managed to get very nice and strong spikes into the court while staying strong in defense forcing a lot of errors. The second set was won again 25:22 and we felt that our first win of the season comes closer and closer. In the third set, we expected some changes in our opponents team but they kept the line-up and tried to be more consistent with attacks. But we were more energetic and had good team play at this day keeping the ball in play and even handling very strong jump serves from the other side. And it ended with an impressive victory of 3:0 (26:24, 25:22, 25:17). Our team was super happy about this first success and it clearly showed the long way we went from the beginning of the season and how much we have improved.

After a break in which Halmstad B beat Örkelljunga B 3:0 in a very exciting and intense match, we had to play Halmstad B.This opponent had amazing energy and very talented and experienced players. Despite that we managed to keep up and even pushed away slightly in the first set. However, very strong jump serves brought our opponent back in the game and we lost the first set 21:25. The second set, we tried to get a gear up but our opponents had strong attackers and a solid defense. So, this set was lost 16:25 and by then we were a bit tired and felt the drop in motivation. This got clearer in set 3 were we barely had any countermeasures left and lost our coherence overall losing 8:25.

It was exciting to finally win a match and the entire team was super happy. We will go to Eneryda for our last match day of the season end of March with maybe more good news.

Coach Thomas