ASV

There wasn't a lot of mystery left for our match against ASV on Friday. We had already played them twice in the pre-season and won decisively both times. Other than their addition of a tall Brasilian, the third time didn't really offer anything different.

Even though we won 3-0, and were never really in danger of losing, each set was a completely different experience from the last.

We started well, aggressive, making points in serve, block, defense and transition and built up an instant lead. All in all, probably our best set so far this year and ASV could not match us.

The second set, which you can see in compressed form on Flemming West's blog, left a lot to be desired from our side. (You might also notice that we are on the wrong side of the court - Usually we start on the side opposite the clock when we play at home - because ASV won the coin toss and decided to switch sides...Interesting choice...) Personally, I couldn't set the ball to Shaun to save my life, and generally let too many sets die too far inside the pins. It put the hitters in difficult situations and that's the main reason we didn't win the set with a bigger margin. I think it ended 25-22 but we had so many chances to score that it could easily have been 14 or 15.

Third set was unremarkable. We played a little better than the second set and got a few guys off the bench some playing time. The end was never really close.

I've said it before, ASV will be better than people expect, they'll upset some people at some point this year. In this match, they simply made too many errors, in serve especially, to really be able to make us uncomfortable.