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"
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