Middelfart + Momentum

Well, last night was certainly a kick in the teeth. Sometimes, stats and scores don't tell the whole story about a match, in this case, the scores are VERY representative of how well we played. We didn't do anything well and Middelfart took full advantage of our inability to get any momentum going. They dominated the net, blocking with high efficiency and played solid defense behind it.

Excuses from our side: We were missing several important players. We had a bad day. We are saving ourselves for the pokal finals on the 20th. Blah, blah, blah...

In truth, we did have problems dealing with the absence of a strong opposite presence. For one, we didn't pass well enough to have enough variation in our offense and two, I didn't do a good enough job distributing the ball when I had the chance. Otherwise, there is absolutely no excuse for playing as poorly as we did. I think that the last time I was on the losing side of such a one sided beating was two years ago in the pokal semi finals in Gentofte. That was also a beating for the ages. Luckily, this one didn't mean as much in the overall scheme of things. We still have a decent lead in the standings and, more importantly, we have a chance for revenge in ten days in the pokal finals. Hopefully, by then we'll have some answers for our lack of players.

Last night's game got me thinking about team spirit. I think we've all had the experience of playing against a team that fed off of energy. In other words, a team that was ten times better when they were emotional and energetic. You could catch them on a day where they didn't have that energy and beat them easily, but once they got going it was difficult to reverse that momentum. Some of the HIK Aalborg teams from three and four years ago were like this. You could go up on them 2-0 and still not feel very safe because one or two blocks and all of a sudden the whole team would catch fire.

I mention this because I've often wondered where that comes from. Is it from certain individuals? Is it team chemistry? Is it a particular style of play? Is it based on performance? Volleyball is a peculiar sport in that each set is a whole new opportunity and therefore momentum can swing wildly at any point. Last night, I kept waiting for our team to rebound and to put some pressure on Middelfart and it never happened. It seemed that for every point we got, they got three and we were always behind. How can a team ever get momentum when the game unfolds like this? It's kind of a chicken and the egg debate, how can you get momentum without playing well? Does momentum come from good play or does good play come from getting excited and playing emotionally?

I think about the game last night and I think there are twenty things I could have done differently. I should have been more vocal, I should have been more positive and I should have tried to slow down the bad runs. But my question is, how does one stay positive when everyone is playing terribly, not the least of which, yourself? How do you create and sustain momentum when you are doing nothing right physically? I've never been able to do so, and I would like to get better at it. Anyone got any suggestions?