Match V Unterhaching

SV Bayer Wuppertal- TSV Unterhaching

25:23 / 25:22 / 17:25 / 16:25 / 15:9

Coming into this match we had not won a league game since October. Of course this included the World Championships break, but it still felt like we were in dire straights. Unterhaching were sitting pretty in 2nd place on the table. They have proved this year to be a solid consistent outfit that has troubled a lot of the traditional power houses in German Volleyball. Only the Wednesday before they lost a 5 setter to Tourcoing in the CEV cup. Tourcoing are traditionally a high ranking side in the very competitive French first league.

We started the first set well, taking an early lead and keeping good pressure on Unterhaching with our serves. However they were up to the challenge continuing to nip at our heels right until the very end. However a great swing from Artur through the middle at 24-23 gave them no oppurtunity to make a transition. 1st set Wuppertal!

The second set we started really badly. Unterhaching's Opposite Mayer was starting to gain some rhythm and punished us by putting away some big transition balls. Suddenly we found ourselves down 8-2. However we continued to fight and little by little began the comeback. With some great swings from Tomas (who had his best game of the season) we were only a few down at the second technical. Then it was 20-20. At this time I was able to come in frontcourt for Mads, i was lucky enough to hit a kill, get a block and then serve an ace on set point to give us the set 25-22.

After the 10 minute break we came out a completely different team, and to be honest...... a pretty bad one. Our momentum was gone and we had no solid attacking options. We made some subs to try and gain a spark, but it was to no avail as Unterhaching won the next 2 comfortably.

The 5th set looked like it might be much of the same. We were down 3-1 and then Unterhaching had a swing for 4-1. Luckily Gergely got a crucial block and we were back in the game. Tomas again stood up when it counted helping us side out solidly and we went to the change of ends 8-7 up. A run of well placed jump floats gave us a commanding 14-8 lead and we eventaully closed it to 9.

It was a relieving win, we know we had played some super volleyball, followed by some real bad Volleyball. However the 2 points on the board is always handy when you havn't had a win in such a long time.