Apparently last Tuesday’s Pokal match was the volleyball apocalypse. It was good we won and all, but it seems that everyone who was a part of that match ended up hurting themselves in one way or another. Geo and Paw and Per and Shaun were all definitely out for yesterday. Toke, who has been laying in bed for the last three weeks, made it back for one practice on Friday and went directly into the starting line up. Basically, we played yesterday with everyone who actually could play. Including Daniel at opposite. So, it took a little getting used to.
We played great in the first set. I don’t know if it was the fact that we didn’t have any time to think about what we were doing and we just played or that everyone was more focused because we knew we were playing a weird line up, but we won easily. Maybe Hvidovre was a little confused with what they were playing against, who knows?
The second set was obviously different, we didn’t hold the same level and Hvidovre played better, everyone messed something up in this set and that didn’t really help us. Unfortunately, even though we were fairly close, we gave up too many easy points and lost the set.
After this, we played better, more stabile and with fair pressure. It wasn’t always pretty, and we clearly couldn’t stop their opposite, but we did enough to win the match. Thinking back, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It was fun to have to figure out a way to win a match in a kind of unorthodox way. We got good contributions from everyone at different times in the match so people stepped up when they had to. And it was also kind of exciting, the fourth set ended up 30-28 so there was a realistic chance that the match could have gone to five sets. I would imagine that Hvidovre feels they missed an opportunity to press us even more.
We can only hope that the Christmas break will give our guys a chance to heal. While it was fun to play this match, I don’t think it is the line up we want to use when we head to Germany or in the Pokal finals. That might make things difficult. But for now, we have to be satisfied with our position in the league and the way the season has progressed so far.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Aarhus + Pokal Semi
After not doing anything for what felt like months, we finally got the chance to play again last weekend. Because of DHG dropping out of the elite and the national team playing in Hungary our schedule has been really sparse for a long time. It was really nice to play a match again.
So, going into Aarhus we had no idea what to expect. After such a long lay off we didn’t know how we would react and we had heard all sorts of rumors about what kind of team Aarhus would play with, so it was interesting to finally see what we were up against. They did have a new Brazilian middle, but the Tunisian has apparently gone back to Northern Africa. Lars Hoppe also stayed in street clothes on the sideline as an assistant coach.
We didn’t really show any signs of rust and played a good all around match. Our serving improved as the match developed and that made things easier and easier for us. We played especially well in the second set and generally had a really good time being back on the court. The highlight was definitely Shaun’s four or five stuff blocks on the outside.
It was an important match for us as we knew that we had to be ready for Tuesday’s pokal semi-final and this was our only real chance to get up into match gear.
Tuesday started incredibly poorly. Down 7-1 is not the way you want to start a big match with a big home crowd. Luckily, we rebounded pretty well and got the points back pretty quickly. I’m not saying that this happened to Gentofte but sometimes it seems like it can be a bad thing to jump out to a big lead right at the start of a match, it can make you drop your guard a little bit and start to think that everything is going to come easily. Then when the other team steps up their tempo it is hard to get back into the game.
Anyways, in my opinion, the game was a really good one. It seems that Gentofte matches up better against us than anyone else in the league. Clearly, our two matches against them have been closer than any of the others we have played. Maybe it’s because they have a good game plan against us or because they get excited to play us or because they play a style that is harder for us to stop than others. But there is no question that they have pushed us more than any other team.
Shaun and Geo carried us when things got close but everyone played solid. After the initial 7 point run, our passing settled down and did an incredible job all match long. I think Gentofte missed a lot of serves but the ones that they hit in were generally good serves and our passers dealt well with them. That made it easy to distribute the ball. I also think that our serves gave us a few more easy points than they got. In the end, we did enough to keep ourselves a few points ahead almost the whole time and even though it stayed fairly close they couldn’t quite get over that hump.
We’re excited to be in the finals in January. I’ve only played in one other Pokalfinal and I’m really happy to be going back. It’s always fun to get the chance to play against a good team in front of a lot of people and the fact that it is another team from Fyn should make the whole thing a little bit more interesting.
Now we look ahead to our last match in Hvidovre on Sunday. I don’t know how we will react after a, to be honest, little bit draining last few days. I also don’t know how healthy we are going to be but hopefully we’ll have enough to play well and go into the Christmas break with a good performance.
So, going into Aarhus we had no idea what to expect. After such a long lay off we didn’t know how we would react and we had heard all sorts of rumors about what kind of team Aarhus would play with, so it was interesting to finally see what we were up against. They did have a new Brazilian middle, but the Tunisian has apparently gone back to Northern Africa. Lars Hoppe also stayed in street clothes on the sideline as an assistant coach.
We didn’t really show any signs of rust and played a good all around match. Our serving improved as the match developed and that made things easier and easier for us. We played especially well in the second set and generally had a really good time being back on the court. The highlight was definitely Shaun’s four or five stuff blocks on the outside.
It was an important match for us as we knew that we had to be ready for Tuesday’s pokal semi-final and this was our only real chance to get up into match gear.
Tuesday started incredibly poorly. Down 7-1 is not the way you want to start a big match with a big home crowd. Luckily, we rebounded pretty well and got the points back pretty quickly. I’m not saying that this happened to Gentofte but sometimes it seems like it can be a bad thing to jump out to a big lead right at the start of a match, it can make you drop your guard a little bit and start to think that everything is going to come easily. Then when the other team steps up their tempo it is hard to get back into the game.
Anyways, in my opinion, the game was a really good one. It seems that Gentofte matches up better against us than anyone else in the league. Clearly, our two matches against them have been closer than any of the others we have played. Maybe it’s because they have a good game plan against us or because they get excited to play us or because they play a style that is harder for us to stop than others. But there is no question that they have pushed us more than any other team.
Shaun and Geo carried us when things got close but everyone played solid. After the initial 7 point run, our passing settled down and did an incredible job all match long. I think Gentofte missed a lot of serves but the ones that they hit in were generally good serves and our passers dealt well with them. That made it easy to distribute the ball. I also think that our serves gave us a few more easy points than they got. In the end, we did enough to keep ourselves a few points ahead almost the whole time and even though it stayed fairly close they couldn’t quite get over that hump.
We’re excited to be in the finals in January. I’ve only played in one other Pokalfinal and I’m really happy to be going back. It’s always fun to get the chance to play against a good team in front of a lot of people and the fact that it is another team from Fyn should make the whole thing a little bit more interesting.
Now we look ahead to our last match in Hvidovre on Sunday. I don’t know how we will react after a, to be honest, little bit draining last few days. I also don’t know how healthy we are going to be but hopefully we’ll have enough to play well and go into the Christmas break with a good performance.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Volleymetrics
Just wanted to pass along a site that I found interesting. I'd love it if he would do some broader analysis involving more than just women's collegiate volleyball, but the conclusions are interesting just the same.
Check out Volleymetrics.
Check out Volleymetrics.
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