POKAL - First Match

Pokal – First Round
Marienlyst – HIK
3-0, 25-18, 25-23, 30-28

Coming into our first pokal match of the season we didn’t really know what to expect. Our team has been under quite a bit of construction and re-construction in the last month or so. We’ve had several players hurt and, of course, a few new players to integrate into the team. So there were several questions that we would get answered in our first “big” match of the season.

As the scores represent, we answered most of the questions positively.

As was expected Jesper Villadsen was back for Aalborg. And it seems the quarantine did little to mellow him out. (Villa, I love it.) But other than that the team was as they have been throughout the preseason. There was some talk that Jeppe might be back and ready to play but he only came in briefly to pass.

It was obvious that they were intent on running the middle from the beginning of the match in order to open things up for their outsides later. Actually, I think Flemming was 6 out of 6 for the match. I can’t remember us stopping him once. Their first two sideouts of the match went through the middle as it looked like Villadsen’s return had immediately improved their passing. Eventually though, as we worked into a stronger serving rhythm, the passes were pushed farther and farther back into the court. The serve pressure and a well functioning side out game proved to be enough for us to take the first set relatively easily.

Second set was more of the same, although Aalborg made it closer, the set was never really in danger. Throughout the match, Aalborg would make several key service mistakes which really took the pressure off of our team.

The third set was a lot more back and forth. We would get a lead and they would come back and take their own lead. This must have happened four or five times until around
17 – 17 when we took three or four points and looked like we would finish the set. This was not the case as they came back and tied it again. With a one point lead 24 – 23 all we needed was a sideout to put the match away. It was not to be, as Aalborg made a nice block control on a Jesper Hansen B from the backrow and ended up putting the ball away to tie it up. We managed to sideout on the next ball and the match went back and forth for the next five or six balls. Villadsen had a few big kills for them in this stretch with one especially important one down the line from the right side on a trouble set. Eventually, I’ll admit, we got lucky when the referee ruled that Aalborg touched a ball in the block that was under the tape allowing us to play it up and Stewart to put the ball away for the match.

Too bad that it ended on that point but overall I think the match was well played from both sides. Aside from the service mistakes, HIK pushed us to play at a high level. I’m just glad to move to the next round where who knows which team we will play…