Midtfyns

Playing the early matches in the Pokal tournament is an interesting experience. You get to play against teams that you normally don’t see during the season. Also, when you play them, they have usually gone out of their way to promote the match and get people to come watch the game.

Midtfyns was no exception. They were opening a new gym and had attracted a small, but engaged, crowd.

The match was nothing special. They were excited and did what they could to press us. We played a little tight in the beginning and the first set was close until around 15-15. After that, we picked up a few balls in defense, they made some mistakes and we finished strong.

The second set was more or less the same.

The third set turned out to be pretty close all the way. We couldn’t score in transition and made too many cautious mistakes. Not playing aggressively is the biggest mistake that a “favorite” can make when playing a lower ranked team. When you let an underdog gain momentum, confidence and energy the match takes a drastically different direction.

It’s funny, but it’s happened a million times: A so-called “better” team will come into a match and make a lot of mistakes. It doesn’t really matter why, lack of motivation, preparation or a bad day, but the mistakes lead to more mistakes. And before you know it, because of the mistakes, the team starts hitting at 80%, serving rainbows to the other team and passing the ball two meters off the net, all because they are afraid of making more mistakes.

It’s a natural reaction. We all want to play the game without making mistakes. If anything though, I would argue, when a team is struggling, they should play more aggressively. Not crazy, just more aggressive. Have confidence that serves will start going in. Hitters will start to find the court. And when they do, they will be more effective. The problem with backing down and playing safe is that it elevates the other team.

When a team makes a lot of serve mistakes. It can actually throw the other team off their game. If they sporadically receive the ball, they can’t establish any side out rhythm. The setter doesn’t get to set the ball, the hitters don’t get to hit the ball and the passers don’t get to pass the ball. When they finally get the chance, a lot of times they are over excited or even cold. On the other hand, if they are sitting there and receiving lollipops the whole time, they are probably going to be siding out at a very high percentage and gaining more and more confidence.

Once a team gets into a cautious/safe mode it is very hard to transition to a stronger more aggressive attitude.

Okay, that was my tangent for the day. We let up quite a bit in the third set and it cost us. It is unacceptable to win two sets – 17 and 12 – and then let the third set be so close. You have to finish teams when you get up on them and this clearly did not happen on Sunday. So, we’ve got some stuff to work on.

Otherwise, we used a lot of our guys, worked with some combinations and other things we have been training and most importantly, advanced to the next round of the Pokal. Now, it’s time to start the regular season grind with ASV on Friday.

And don’t worry, the world famous betting preview will be back for this weekend so everyone will have a chance to win millions…