Last match day @Eneryda

Saturday 26/03 was our last match day in Div 3 Södra Herrar. It was two tough opponents we were facing with the number 1 Karlskrona and the number 3 Eneryda in the league. So, we traveled together to Älmhult which is also IKEA's headquarter. Our squad was a bit short of players with Georgios R., Abe, Erik, Shi, Pierlo, Manos and Victor, so another time the trainer had to become a player to complete the team.

The first match against the leader of the board started as expected with them pulling away quick and us lacking still a bit out of focus. We fell behind 10 points quickly and were not able to compensate. Our opponents had very strong spikers and good coordination. However, after leading a lot and winning 25:9 they were relaxing more and not playing at full power anymore. This was our chance in the second set to punish this with better receives and strong attacks. We managed to keep up the entire set and actually fight back making it a tight loss 19:25. We were hoping to maybe snatch away the third set by making less individual errors but our opponents came back more focused again and we eventually lost 0:3 (9:25, 19:25, 15:25).

After a short break, we played against the host team Eneryda. They were more a mix of younger and more experienced players with a very strong middle. Warm and motivated, we went into the first set and were able to keep up. Still our serve-receives were lacking a bit precision and made it hard to run efficient attacks. We fell short in the first two sets that were close to identical (20:25, 19:25). Especially in the last phase of a set, the heat gets into our heads and more small errors occur. In the third set, we managed to stay even and got a nice sequence of serves at the end pulling us ahead. This secured us a set win 25:21 at the end. In the forth set, we started strong and pulled ahead but again give our opponents too many points with easy errors. At the end - also a bit tired from having to play without any subs - we had to admit defeat 1:3 (20:25, 19:25, 25:21, 21:25).

Overall, it was still exciting matches and compared to the beginning of the season we were really able to give our opponents a good fight and contribute to exciting rallies. We came a long way and considering that we have many completely new players, a very good and positive development was visible. Hopefully, we can keep it up and build on top of the accomplished in the next season. Thanks to all the supporters, the help within our club with officiating and scoring.

Until next season,

Coach Thomas