First of all I have to apologize for the lack of info in my blog this past week. It has been very busy for the team with 3 matches and that has taken most of my time.
Secondly I am sorry for the missing recaps of our matches on the clubs webpage. They have all been written and also posted. But something is wrong with the browser on our webpage so we can't post new articles. I hope it will be fixed soon...
The 3 matches...
My last article was about the big match we were going to play against Holte(now 9-0). The match was not a very pretty one, but what it lacked in beauty it had in drama and intensity.
We got off to an awfull start in the first game and never recovered. We couldn't pass the tough Holte serves, and at the same time we had no power in our own attacks.
Things got much better through the rest of the match though. We managed to pick up our level in passing and we got way more energy both on outside and middle offense. 2nd game goes our way and that made the match tied again.
3rd game we keep the momentum going throughout most of the game, and we had a game point at 24-23 but the ball was hit out and Holte ends up taking the game 27-25. A hard loss in a game where we had Holte under pressure in their sideout and blocked them really well to make points in our own serv.
4th game starts off awfull and it seems like the match is our and that the loss in 3rd game had gotten the best of us. But down with 9 points the girls followed the lead of Caley Carter who took charge and demanded more from everyone, showing the way herself by killing balls and playing some great defence. We reach Holte at 19-20, but we finish the match with 3 serving errors and that was costfull. We lost the 4th game 25-23 and thereby the match.
All in all we did a lot of things right against a team that is on a winningstreak which makes them that much harder to beat. Statisticly we should have won the match, more effective in passing, blocking and hitting, but when it mattered Holte was just the better team. They knew how to make the points that mattered and that made the difference.
Midweek we had a match against gentofte(now 2-6) and we showed up without Jeanette(L) who got a leg injury at mondays practise, and Lotte(MH)who was ill.
A mentally tough match Wednesday evening and we never really showed up in that match. We won it 3-0 but 1st and 3rd game could have gone both ways. We had problems in passing but mostly it seemed like the girls just knew when to turn up the level just enough to catch Gentofte's lead and win the match.
Yesterday we had the 3rd match in just 7 days. Brøndby(now 6-3) were coming to town and we knew it would be a tough match. Brøndby has a new team after having signed 3 new American players and the Danish national team setter.
They came firing from all angles and our passing was again missing Jeanette and that gave us a lot of problems. With the bad passing we couldn't get any rhythm in offense and we lost the first game with 9 points I think.
Coming out to the 2nd game we swapped Caley to outside and Kristen to rightside and that helped our offense, but passing was still not working at all and Brøndby were just killing every ball they tuched. We lose the game by 2 points and were now down 2-0 i games and had at no point found answers to break the Brøndby defence and serves.
3rd game we decided to have Caley, Katherine and Kristen passing in all possible rotations and that helped a lot. The girls stepped up and at the same time our own serves got way better. We got off to an 8 point lead and even though Brøndby came a bit closer at the end due to 3 serving errors the win in the 3rd game were never really in danger.
4th game and we felt we had some momentum to build on. But midway we started to hit the balls out again both easy and hard ones, and that gave Brøndby the lead... A timeout, a little bit of yelling and then we were back on track taking the match to 5th game. Julie(OH) came in to serv and gave us 2 aces to help the proces along.
5th game and we had talked about holding on to momentum coming from 0-2 to 2-2 in games. We wanted to force Brøndby to make their own points and just fight for every single ball and so we did... The girls changed sides at 8-6, 9-6 but then Brøndby faught their way back in it. In the end it all came down to the big players on both sides to make big plays, and in that specific catagory we were the better team on the day. Caley and Katherine are just amazing players in those situations. Caley did it in the 3rd game and Katherine took the show in the 5th with 3 single block kills at the end to give us a 15-12 win and that was the match.
To be honest there are many reason why we should have lost that match. Brøndby really played well and was the better team in the match, but on a day where nothing was working optimal we found our way back. Mille(L) who was subbing for Jeanette played some amazing defence when it really mattered and that gave us more chances in transition than earlier in the match. Dorthe(S) did the simple things after the first 2 games where we tried to run many new things, and she found the players that made the points for us at the right time. Juliane and Lotte stayed in it though we were unable to set them a lot, and they made so many important blocks and serves. And Kristen who didn't have one of her best days came through in the end with 2 kills, 1 block and one very amazing defencive play in the 5th game.
The way we as a team pulled through today and the way Katherine and Caley has taken the lead in the Holte match and in this one, I feel very confident we are on our way to a good season. We must be doing a lot of things right during the week for the girls to pull out a team performance like today. And NO it was not pretty today, and NO we have no player that can fill out the shoes of the teams smallest player, Jeanette, but we have a lot of good players who all have different qualities, and when we as coaches manage to put the girls in situations where each player gets a chance to help the team with what she is best at, we are a hard team to beat and we will get stronger with every step we take, getting to know eachother more and more. We have 5 new players in our starting 7 comparing to last season, so to be where we are now is pretty impressive to me.
Coming up is the a double match this next weekend where we play Frederiksberg(now 5-4) Sunday and Gentofte(now 2-6) on Monday, leaving only the Cup semifinal to be played on December 14th angainst Skovbakken(now 2-6) before we leave for Christmas break.
"It is the things we do and the hard work we deliver during the week... that make us what we are on gameday"
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Another win and now the big Riot..
We won our match this Friday against Lyngby(now 2-5) which were our 6th straight win against Danish teams and again the score was 3-0 in games.
We managed to bring our high level of serving which instantly put Lyngby's side-out under pressure. Our hitters came out with great numbers in the end, and Caley got away with the MVP for the match. She played a very solid and killed 2/3 of all the sets she got. But also Kristen played her best match yet in offence making no errors on 18 sets and killing half of them.
Our passers did we descent performance, but we struggled a bit a few times. The girls however, kept coming back giving Dorthe great time and many opportunities to make the set she wanted to.
We finaly played a match where we converted transition very well and that always kept us tied or more against a wellplaying Lyngby Team. Midway through each game we found a serving streak or two to give us the lead. Katherine and Caley both had some great runs in their serves, and also Juliane who tried a new serv was doing very well.
Rematch...!
Coming weekend we are going on the road playing the league's number 1 Holte(now 7-0) who yet have to lose their first game. We played them in the 1st round in a match where we never found our own level, and Holte kept us away from involving our middles.
We hope to be the first team to break their winning streak and even though it will be a tough match, I feel we are better prepared to bring the type of volleyball we want to. We've had more time to find the "TEAM" on our team, and the girls are getting more comfortable on court.
The match will very much be decided on which team wins the serve/pass match-up, but even if we succeed in serving well, there will still be a lot of transition points to play for, and with the hard work we have put into defence since we played them last, we should put up a better fight for the win.
All in all I expect us to give them a fight for their money, and if we play well as a team opening the door for individuals to shine, I feel we have a bigger string of pointmakers than they do and that could give us the edge we need to win it. But is starts and ends with TEAM and we lacked that in the first match against them.
Michael
"Triumph starts with TRI and end on a big fat UMPH"
We managed to bring our high level of serving which instantly put Lyngby's side-out under pressure. Our hitters came out with great numbers in the end, and Caley got away with the MVP for the match. She played a very solid and killed 2/3 of all the sets she got. But also Kristen played her best match yet in offence making no errors on 18 sets and killing half of them.
Our passers did we descent performance, but we struggled a bit a few times. The girls however, kept coming back giving Dorthe great time and many opportunities to make the set she wanted to.
We finaly played a match where we converted transition very well and that always kept us tied or more against a wellplaying Lyngby Team. Midway through each game we found a serving streak or two to give us the lead. Katherine and Caley both had some great runs in their serves, and also Juliane who tried a new serv was doing very well.
Rematch...!
Coming weekend we are going on the road playing the league's number 1 Holte(now 7-0) who yet have to lose their first game. We played them in the 1st round in a match where we never found our own level, and Holte kept us away from involving our middles.
We hope to be the first team to break their winning streak and even though it will be a tough match, I feel we are better prepared to bring the type of volleyball we want to. We've had more time to find the "TEAM" on our team, and the girls are getting more comfortable on court.
The match will very much be decided on which team wins the serve/pass match-up, but even if we succeed in serving well, there will still be a lot of transition points to play for, and with the hard work we have put into defence since we played them last, we should put up a better fight for the win.
All in all I expect us to give them a fight for their money, and if we play well as a team opening the door for individuals to shine, I feel we have a bigger string of pointmakers than they do and that could give us the edge we need to win it. But is starts and ends with TEAM and we lacked that in the first match against them.
Michael
"Triumph starts with TRI and end on a big fat UMPH"
Monday, November 9, 2009
Keeping the winning streak alive...
We haven't lost to a Danish team since the first round loss against Holte(now 6-0) and in the first match after our Nordic Championship weekend, I knew it was going to be a lot about the mental aspect of the game that needed attention to keep the streak of wins alive.
We were facing Skovbakken(now 0-6) at home, and eventhough it was a team without wins in the league, all games they have lost has been close and they came with a fresh win against Lyngby(now 2-4) in the Cup tournament quaterfinals.
So we expected an opponent with confidens after advancing to the Cup semifinals and we know Skovbakken as a tough serving and blocking team. They have one of the big profiles of the entire league, Ivana Babic(MB) so we knew we had to put focus on her.
1st game starts off a bit shacky... We make 4 serving errors in the first 6 tries and Skovbakken gave us a fight for our money in our side-out. However, we overcome over slow start, get a few servingstreaks going and take home a not wellplayed game 25-23 after a good Skovbakken comeback near the end. Katherine Whitney(OH) was our big pointscorer in this game.
2nd game began a lot better for us playingwise. Kristen Karlik(RS) came on court for Eva Vennekilde(RS) to help out our passing and defense. We connected better over the middle with Lotte Hauge(MB) as the big player and also Caley "The Rocket" Carter(OH) picked up her killing percentage in this game. We play consitantly throughout the game and keep Skovbakken from the long servingstreaks they had had in the 1st game. 25-16 was the end score.
3rd game and the line-up was the same as in the 2nd game. We get an early lead of 4-5 points and halfway through the game our young talent Lise Lindø(RS) got a chance to feel the court. She did what she had to, killed 1 ball, lost 1 ball, got 1 block kill and an assisted blockkill.
At the end of the 3rd game we have a 23-18 lead and a good line at the net. But a lost ball over the middle on a perfect pass and after that 2 bad passes made the score 23-21 and forced us to a timeout.
We had a talk about right and wrong solutions and after that 2 sets to Katherine going over their short lineblock made it 25-21.
MVP for our team was Lotte Hauge(MB) who completely closed down Ivana Babic(MB) from Skovbakken, but also Katherine(OH) had a great game with .750 killing stat over 3 games(AMAZING) and Caley(OH) with a .400 killing stat. The fact that our 2 outside hitters are playing with those numbers is a contribute to our middles too. They have gotten so much better during the season, and the connection with Dorthe(S) has proved to be one of our strengths on the team. And when middles are that dangerous, Katherine and Caley get better conditions which they take full advantage of.
Finding the balance and the Cup semifinals coming up...
Playing a team like Skovbakken who we will play again in the Cup semifinal, it is so important that our team finds the balance between trying the fun but riskful plays and "moving the chains" as the say in football.
Skovbakken have some very good servers and any sideout we can get in first try we should take. Against a team like that you just never know when they will pull out 5-6 great serves and before you know it you are down by that much or the game is tied again and you just lost a big lead.
In this weekends match we didn't find the best way of getting out of tough situations. We try difficult stuff in a line-up where they have our passers under pressure, and it is just a question of the opposing team being a bit more efficient than Skovbakken was this Saturday before we lose a game instead of winning it. That will be something we will focus on this week and the week after too. What makes Manning, Brady etc. so good as team leaders.. They know when to "move the chains" and when to show off.. and we have to do the same in volleyball.
That's all for now, coming up this Friday is a match against my old team from Lyngby(now 2-4). It will be a fun match to play and I am sure both sides will be extra excited to win this one. Lyngby has a strong team of players who can't but volleyball as number 1 priority, but still has the level to beat the best. We have to be on our toes, keeping our tempo in offense and putting pressure in our serves.
Michael
"you have to know when to hold 'em... Know when to fold 'em"
We were facing Skovbakken(now 0-6) at home, and eventhough it was a team without wins in the league, all games they have lost has been close and they came with a fresh win against Lyngby(now 2-4) in the Cup tournament quaterfinals.
So we expected an opponent with confidens after advancing to the Cup semifinals and we know Skovbakken as a tough serving and blocking team. They have one of the big profiles of the entire league, Ivana Babic(MB) so we knew we had to put focus on her.
1st game starts off a bit shacky... We make 4 serving errors in the first 6 tries and Skovbakken gave us a fight for our money in our side-out. However, we overcome over slow start, get a few servingstreaks going and take home a not wellplayed game 25-23 after a good Skovbakken comeback near the end. Katherine Whitney(OH) was our big pointscorer in this game.
2nd game began a lot better for us playingwise. Kristen Karlik(RS) came on court for Eva Vennekilde(RS) to help out our passing and defense. We connected better over the middle with Lotte Hauge(MB) as the big player and also Caley "The Rocket" Carter(OH) picked up her killing percentage in this game. We play consitantly throughout the game and keep Skovbakken from the long servingstreaks they had had in the 1st game. 25-16 was the end score.
3rd game and the line-up was the same as in the 2nd game. We get an early lead of 4-5 points and halfway through the game our young talent Lise Lindø(RS) got a chance to feel the court. She did what she had to, killed 1 ball, lost 1 ball, got 1 block kill and an assisted blockkill.
At the end of the 3rd game we have a 23-18 lead and a good line at the net. But a lost ball over the middle on a perfect pass and after that 2 bad passes made the score 23-21 and forced us to a timeout.
We had a talk about right and wrong solutions and after that 2 sets to Katherine going over their short lineblock made it 25-21.
MVP for our team was Lotte Hauge(MB) who completely closed down Ivana Babic(MB) from Skovbakken, but also Katherine(OH) had a great game with .750 killing stat over 3 games(AMAZING) and Caley(OH) with a .400 killing stat. The fact that our 2 outside hitters are playing with those numbers is a contribute to our middles too. They have gotten so much better during the season, and the connection with Dorthe(S) has proved to be one of our strengths on the team. And when middles are that dangerous, Katherine and Caley get better conditions which they take full advantage of.
Finding the balance and the Cup semifinals coming up...
Playing a team like Skovbakken who we will play again in the Cup semifinal, it is so important that our team finds the balance between trying the fun but riskful plays and "moving the chains" as the say in football.
Skovbakken have some very good servers and any sideout we can get in first try we should take. Against a team like that you just never know when they will pull out 5-6 great serves and before you know it you are down by that much or the game is tied again and you just lost a big lead.
In this weekends match we didn't find the best way of getting out of tough situations. We try difficult stuff in a line-up where they have our passers under pressure, and it is just a question of the opposing team being a bit more efficient than Skovbakken was this Saturday before we lose a game instead of winning it. That will be something we will focus on this week and the week after too. What makes Manning, Brady etc. so good as team leaders.. They know when to "move the chains" and when to show off.. and we have to do the same in volleyball.
That's all for now, coming up this Friday is a match against my old team from Lyngby(now 2-4). It will be a fun match to play and I am sure both sides will be extra excited to win this one. Lyngby has a strong team of players who can't but volleyball as number 1 priority, but still has the level to beat the best. We have to be on our toes, keeping our tempo in offense and putting pressure in our serves.
Michael
"you have to know when to hold 'em... Know when to fold 'em"
Monday, November 2, 2009
So much good and still not enough...
After a tough week we just got back home from Finland and the 1st round of the N.C.C.
Let me say right away that we lost the final match against the home team Somero with 3-2. And due to a bad ball score, we finish last of the runner-ups and are therefore out of the tournament.
Sitting back with a lot of disapointment and thinking about how we could have done it differently, and I realize that there is nothing we could have changed. On paper we have an amazing team, and every day at practise we work to become better as a team, but to expect my players to beat a Finish top team is not really fair.
I do believe we have the level when things are floating, but under pressure we still struggle to find answers in passing and thereby offense.
On Saturday we won against Lindesberg from Sweden who has Crystal Barnes as a middle and none less than Marcie Hampton as outside. That win was amazing! We were all over them in the block, and our serves made it hard on their talented setter.
The win gave us a lot of confidens, but we failed to stay at that level in the match Sunday. The Finish team came with tough serving and we simply could not get stability in passing, and Dorthe was struggling to get our middles involved. We lost 25-13 after an 8-2 lead in the first game, and that says it all.
A 25-20 win in the second game didn't change matters a whole lot. We were still having trust issues in passing and defense, but Somero started making more errors too.
25-13 in third game and again we completely fell apart in our side-out.
The fourth game we finally found som answers, and a 23-15 lead ended with a 25-22 win. But the lost points in 1st and 3rd game, and the big lead we gave up in the 4th left us with only one thing to do to promote to the finals... Win the 5th game.
We started out awfull and never recovered. 1-6 was the score after we lead out with a side-out to make it 1-0 and then a serving error.
We changed sides at 4-8 and then got aces 2 times. It enden 15-7 and we finshed a 3-2 loss plus a 3-0 win with a ball score of -1.
A sad way to end a elseway perfect weekend with team bonding, team meeting etc., but in a tournament like this, you just can't give away games with a 10+ margin. We had plus 23 from our first match and still couldn't stay in it..
I am however, proud of the girls and the way they faught their way back in the match today. We have a lot of work to be done before we can call ourselves a team, but everyone is willing to do the work, and there are still a lot of matches to be played this season, with the Cup semifinal coming up in december, and 4 important league matches in November.
I am sorry that I am not able to bring news of victories, but I can promise you that the girls gave everything they had and on a different day things would have turned out our way.
Michael
Let me say right away that we lost the final match against the home team Somero with 3-2. And due to a bad ball score, we finish last of the runner-ups and are therefore out of the tournament.
Sitting back with a lot of disapointment and thinking about how we could have done it differently, and I realize that there is nothing we could have changed. On paper we have an amazing team, and every day at practise we work to become better as a team, but to expect my players to beat a Finish top team is not really fair.
I do believe we have the level when things are floating, but under pressure we still struggle to find answers in passing and thereby offense.
On Saturday we won against Lindesberg from Sweden who has Crystal Barnes as a middle and none less than Marcie Hampton as outside. That win was amazing! We were all over them in the block, and our serves made it hard on their talented setter.
The win gave us a lot of confidens, but we failed to stay at that level in the match Sunday. The Finish team came with tough serving and we simply could not get stability in passing, and Dorthe was struggling to get our middles involved. We lost 25-13 after an 8-2 lead in the first game, and that says it all.
A 25-20 win in the second game didn't change matters a whole lot. We were still having trust issues in passing and defense, but Somero started making more errors too.
25-13 in third game and again we completely fell apart in our side-out.
The fourth game we finally found som answers, and a 23-15 lead ended with a 25-22 win. But the lost points in 1st and 3rd game, and the big lead we gave up in the 4th left us with only one thing to do to promote to the finals... Win the 5th game.
We started out awfull and never recovered. 1-6 was the score after we lead out with a side-out to make it 1-0 and then a serving error.
We changed sides at 4-8 and then got aces 2 times. It enden 15-7 and we finshed a 3-2 loss plus a 3-0 win with a ball score of -1.
A sad way to end a elseway perfect weekend with team bonding, team meeting etc., but in a tournament like this, you just can't give away games with a 10+ margin. We had plus 23 from our first match and still couldn't stay in it..
I am however, proud of the girls and the way they faught their way back in the match today. We have a lot of work to be done before we can call ourselves a team, but everyone is willing to do the work, and there are still a lot of matches to be played this season, with the Cup semifinal coming up in december, and 4 important league matches in November.
I am sorry that I am not able to bring news of victories, but I can promise you that the girls gave everything they had and on a different day things would have turned out our way.
Michael
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