Status

I'm not going to spend any real time describing yesterday's game because, frankly, nothing interesting happened. If you want to read about something interesting and exciting go to Olafsen's Volley and read about his teams' big quarterfinal win.

The scores in our match speak for themselves. 18-17-18. We took a beating. Luckily, this game meant nothing to us as far as the final standings. But I have to hand it to HIK, they played a great match. Their block, serve, passing and attacking was much improved compared to earlier in the season. They were running an extremely quick ball to the outside and generally made up for any mistakes on their side with really solid blocking. They are going to be a difficult out in the playoffs if they continue to play like they did yesterday.

Yesterday's result means that we play Gentofte in the semis. I'm not really sure that I want to go back to Kildeskovshallen for another playoff match. We've had our difficulties there over the years and Gentofte has always been dangerous at home.

I think the semi-final match-ups are really interesting this year. You've got two really physical teams in HIK and Middelfart on one side and two teams that are a little bit more technically oriented in Us and Gentofte on the other.

HIK and Middelfart have won and lost to each other this year and they both carry long winning streaks into their series, so it should be really competitive. It will be interesting to see if HIK's middles can contain Ryan on the right side. And if Middelfart can't get as much production out of the opposite as they have all year, how will they react? Also, who will be able to serve well and consistently put pressure on the other team's passers? I hope that I'll get a chance to get over to Middelfart and see at least one match between these two...

We've beaten Gentofte every time we've played this year, but only one of those wins was convincing. We have a tradition for playing really tight matches against each other and I don't see any reason why this year will be any different. Hopefully, we'll be able to play better than we have the last week and find our way back to top form.

It's been a really long regular season and it's great to see the playoffs coming around the corner. It's also positive to see the quality of the top four teams. I don't think I can remember a year (maybe my first year in Denmark 2002-03) where there were four teams that were this good in the playoffs. It will be interesting to see how the hot teams fare, and if we can live up to the favorite role that we've had on our backs all year.