Match V Unterhaching

We were off to a slow start as we were delayed for a good hour down at the club while waiting for a scouting DVD to burn. What was to follow was a 6hr drive to Muinich to play Unterhaching. After arriving on the saturday night we had dinner and went to bed to prepare for the following days match. We had a pretty dissapointing training in the morning, especially with the serving and reception. However we were still confident of taking the 2 points against a team that finished 4th last season. Even though early in the season this was always going to be an important game in the context of where we wanted to finish at the end of the year. The team had a good warm up and were pumped to go at the start of the first. Going point for point for the first half of the set Unterhaching then began to pull away due to some attacking errors and our inability to capitalise on some good pick ups. A late run at the end of the set almost got us to 24-24, but Flo our libero summed up the set when he was called for a double making a transition set. It looked like it might be a similar story in the second as we started a little slow. Peter replaced Lars and then not soon after I came on for Tommy to play my first points in the Bundesliga. I was happy to make a bit of an impact early killing an overpass on my forst point and hitting 2 more kills in the next handful of points. Peter also made a good impact putting away some tough spikes from a long way off the net. Slowly but surely we began to pull ahead of Unterhaching and even with a few passing worries we were able to pull away and take the set comfortably.
Now what was weird in the Bundesliga was that we had a 10 minute break inbetween the 2nd and 3rd sets, im not exactley sure why but to me it certainly seems to dent a team/individuals momentum when they have to go back into the changeroom and then start peppering again out on court. However in our case it did not seem to matter as we chased back an early lead from Unterhaching to come over the top and take the set again.
So now having won 2 sets in a row we were looking the goods to take it in 4. However we seemed to realx too much and found ourselves down 7-2 due to 3-4 hitting errors in a row. It was catch up the whole way this set and with the inclusion of Tommy for myself we were able to peg it back to 23-23. Unfortunatelly 2 plays from Unterhaching were enough to take the set 25-23, taking it to a tiebreak.
We started the 5th well and were up 3-1, we had a big chance to make it 4-1 but we played a ball that was going out due to a lack of talk. (A little thing that can cost big later) For the rest of the set it was solid side out form both teams with Wuppertal never giving up the lead. at 13-13 we had 2 swings for the point but were unable to put the ball away and a transition play from Unterhaching gave them match point. They only needed 1 chance as Unterhaching made the most of a strong serve putting away the free ball we had to give them to take it 15-13.
Of course we were all very dissapointed with the loss, we felt we had more chances to take the match but could not capatilise. However there were some positives, I thought Mads played a solid match and made some smart shots on some hard plays to keep us in the match. Peter although a little up and down showed his ability to make some good plays from the backrow, especially with the tough transition sets. Flo had a solid game in reception and defense and as a team we completely demorilised some players with our blocking througout the match. We are certainly looking forward to the upcoming home game on sunday to get a good win on the board.