Season ended...

So...

After a loooong time since my last update I feel like I am ready to reflect a bit upon the last part of season.
Losing out in the semifinals 1-3 in matches(3-0, 2-3, 2-3, 2-3) was the last stop on our journey this year, and as the results show there is a long and deep story behind it all with a lot of drama and intensity..

First of all let me say that we finished the regular season in 3rd place losing the last match 3-1 away to Sollentuna. Maybe that loss was a sign to us of what was to come. It was not so much the fact that we lost, cuz Sollentuna played the best we have seen them play, but it was the fact that we entered the match thinking that a decent effort would be enough to win it... We thought wrong.!

After that loss we had a good talk about our mental state and we entered the 1/4 finals with a lot of confidense playing the #7 seed from Falköping. Unfortunately that confidense resulted in the exact same mistake as we did against Sollentuna, and our home crowd got to see a hometeam without the usual resilience and confidense on court when things got rough.. We lost the first 1/4 final by 3-2 at home and suddently our season had turned upside down in just 2 weeks from having a chance to finish 2nd in the regular season winning homecourt advantage all the way through possible semifinals and being undefeated at home, to now finishing 3rd losing that homecourt advantage and our Linde Arena was nolonger an sieged fortress.
In retrospect that may very well have planted some seeds in our mentality and I am sure - now more than ever - that it took a big bite from our confidense in our own style of play. We have all season played an aggressive style of play with much discipline in block and defense, but the loss to Falköping told us a story of giving up 16 block kills to the other team and 39 errors on top of that in 5 sets... If anyone is wondering - YES that is how you ensure to lose a match.

Picking up our game we won the next 2 matches 3-0, 3-0 giving us a chance to finish off the 1/4 finals in 4 and regain all confidense. The 2 wins was secured with smart offence avoiding the big blocks from Falköping and that gave us an advantage.
The 4th match started out perfect and we ran them over in the 1st set, 2nd set same story until we reach about 20 and then we start to lose focus, laughing of our own mistakes and maybe trying too many things when not needed. We lost the 2nd set. 3rd set we are back on track after having talked with big letters in the time between the sets and we run them over again. 4th set is tight all the way but Falköping took it at the end bringing us to another 5th set against this team. In the 5th set it is again the young girls from Falköping who has the edge and they play without fear of losing which is the opposite of what we are doing and they win the set and thereby the match.
Driving home from Falköping one of my players was interviewed by the loal news and she spoke very responsably and calm with all the confidense in the world that if we just play our own game we will win easy.
We did in the last match at home and took it big 3-0 and thereby made the semifinals.

Playing our own game...

Entering the semifinals playing the #2 seed we had a belief that we could win and we were hungry for revenge after having lost to this team the last 2 times we played them.
We played the 1st match away and took a huge 3-0 win where our serving pressure was unstoppable and everything went our way.
We brought that level to the 2nd match at home winning the first 2 sets huge and leading 16-13 in the 3rd... I am going to let that sit for a while... 5 sets in a row crushing this team and 6th set up by 16-13...

And then something happened that I had not seen coming.. We lost our lead in the 3rd set with a series of bad passes and Katrineholm took the set 25-22 and from then on they never looked back winning the match 3-2 in our gym.
We were all in a state of chok after that loss but had a good talk about it and our hunger for revenge grew again..

The next match was moved up 2 days from a Sunday to a Friday leaving only 1 day between the 2 matches but all that did was to make us want it even more, and as long as the physical level could be held high we knew we could do it..
It was another match of ups and downs.. We won the first. lost 2nd and 3rd, won the 4th only to lose out in the 5th set and another 3-2 defeat..

Suddently we were down 2-1 in matches and needed to win the next one at home to stay alive.. We had plenty of rest and it felt good going in to the game.
Again a very clear memory for me was our tactical meeting before the match, one of the girls said that she was not worried because now we were all feeling strong and rested so now we would win, and she was just speaking out the feeling we al had.. Again in retrospect I feel we forgot everything we talked about after those words came out.. We spend the rest of the meeting talking about why we all played volleyball, what made it fun, what is our style of play and how we needed to stick to that when it got touch and tight, yet it seemed to have no effect in the match just 2 hours later..

We crushed them in the 1st, had an 8 point lead in the 2nd only to throw that away giving them the 2nd set. 3rd set we stormed away and won it by 10 points only to lose out in the 4th after another series of unsuccessful passes.
So here we were at the beginning of the 5th set.. our 5th 5set match of the playoffs having lost the 4 before this one.. This time however there was no doubt, Katrineholm took a solid lead after we switched sides and they never stopped putting pressure, didn't give away errors and we unlike most of season we unable to convert to points.. the 5th 3-2 loss in just as many tries leaving us with a feeling that we had the level to win but lacked ability to believe in it when it got close..


The aftermath...

Ending it all this way has left what they in Sweden call Silly Season(the time between season where players and coaches har hired and fired) in a bit of a chaos... We all feel like we could have ended season with a better result and there will always be a ton of people on and outside the team with claimed knowledge of what should have been different and who did what wrong, but at the end of the day it is always so easy to sit back after everything is done and point fingers and we will not be doing that in this club... We know that only 1 team will sit with the gold in the end and if everyone but them did a bad job because they didn't win the gold then the rate of success in this business is so small that it id hardly worth doing...
In Lindesberg we believe in the development of the club and the culture of how we want to do things and there is a lot of reflecting going on right now within the club and coaches and all the players are being involved as well.. We want to come out of this stronger than 1 season ago and that is exactly what we will, but you do not want to built a new house with a new foundation and 3 levels just to pick it down after a year and build a new one.. You can change a windowframe, a doorknob but the foundation needs to stay the same year after year to get the most out of the investment made in the house..

That is why we will not be changing 12 players, 2 coaches and 3 board members just because we lost in the semifinals.. Overall we had a good season for Lindesberg Volley and our values have been clear to our crowd and our sponsors all year long and they love what they see.. That brings us further and gives us more opportunities to invest further and develope more on our foundation..

At the end of it all I want to say a big thanks to the girls for the many experiences we have shared this season, the club and board for the hard work they have done to make this a special season for us, the crowd for our home matches and the atmospheare they help create around our team and the endless support, and last but not least our sponsors who with their involvement and support has made everything we have accomplished this season possible to begin with... You har a HUGE cornerstone in our foundation and we are forever greatful that you believe in us.


Michael