Game v Hvidovre

We went down to Copenhagen Sunday, leaving from Aalborg at 7am, and getting in around 1. It is a long and boring ride, but I managed to sleep for most of it. The team wandered around the complex (home to the international powerhouse that is Danish curling!) where the game was being held and waited for our 3 o'clock gametime.

The previous game against Hvidovre we killed them, scoring a ton of points off our serves and rolling to an easy victory. Their form had been good at home, however, as they had taken a set off Marienlyst recently. The also had some new players, including a new setter who seemed more experienced than the previous one. I felt good going into the game; I didn't expect it to be easy, their result against Marienlyst suggested as much, but I did think we would win if we could play as well as we did against Marienlyst three weeks before.

The first play of the game, I set back to Dennis, who waffled the ball, but still got the kill, with the ball landing just inside the back line. That would turn out to be one of the few times in the match luck was on our side. Our passing was shaky from the start, and I had trouble getting the middle going early. Like I've said before, if you can't get the middle going early, it's hard to come back to it later because the other team will be camping out on it anytime you get a decent pass. Hvidovre also blocked well in the first set, allowing them to score a lot of points off their own serve. They ended up cruising to a win, 16-25.

The second set had more of the same, unfortunately, with poor passing and little rhythm in our offense, and some good play by Hvidovre. Dennis and Joakim were switched, but we continued to miss a lot of serves and not put a lot of pressure on them early in the set. However, as it progressed we improved and I was able to get Morten some balls in the middle and I felt more in sync with the hitters. We managed to close the gap a bit, but we had given up too many points in the beginning and ended up losing, 21-25.

The third set saw us finally beginning to play some real volleyball. The errors were reduced (but still not eliminated) on our side, and we were able to get some float serves on their libero, who had trouble with them and thus gave their setter fewer options. They had been running the middle pretty well all day, and forcing them to the outsides definitely helped us win the set. We were down late in the set, 22-24, with me serving and Hvidovre having match ball. Joakim was subbed in and came up with a big block to make it 23-24, and Dennis and Fleming got another to tie it up. Two plays later, we dug a transition ball and I set back to Dennnis who killed it to win the set for us 26-24.

After winning the 3rd we had all the momentum in the match, and Hvidovre looked on their heels, but we couldn't take advantage of it at all. Early in the 4th we were down by 5 or 6 points, and all the momentum we had was lost. However, we were able to run off several points on our own serve a couple times and we created energy to get back into the set with some great kills and blocks by Niels, who had switched to opposite. As our coach pointed out, they didn't look comfortable in close situations at the end of the match, as evidenced by their two missed serves at the end of the 4th when they had match ball. Two questionable calls by the referees (more on them later), including the ball that would have won us the set, put Hvidovre in a position to win the match again, at 25-26. A hitting error on the last play ended up giving a victory to them and was a fitting end to the day for us.

Not to make any excuses, but the referees made decisions that changed the course of the game. We were having trouble with our new jerseys, which kept coming untucked and hitting the net, but there were at least three phantom net calls against us. The first was on me on a block I made (with the shirt tucked in, by the way), the second was on a set ball Dennis put back over the net, and the third was a ball Nils hit down the line the ref claimed also hit the antenna. I still cannot understand why Danish volleyball doesn't have line judges. There's no way referees can see those types of plays with any kind of accuracy. Also, there was a ball that was such an obvious touch on Hvidovre that they went back into serve receive, but the ref was determined to give the point to them until he changed his call when he saw Hvidovre waiting in reception. To me, the worst part of it was the fact they were inconsistent. A ball that one play would be called a double would in the next be perfectly OK. If you're a bad ref, you're bad for both teams, but being inconsistent is inexcusable. They are certainly not the reason we lost; we managed that on our own. But as I sit and think back on the match, the plays the refs made are some of the ones that stand out the most, which is unfortunate, because that's not volleyball.

All the progress that we made over the past 3-4 matches felt like it went down the toilet Sunday. The 3 weeks off definitely did us no favors. I felt like I didn't run the offense as quickly as I could to the outsides, and for whatever reason there were not a lot of good balls for me to give to Fleming when he was in the front. There were a ton of unforced errors on our part: missed serves, shanked passes, net violations, etc. that if we could have eliminated would have made it a completely different ball game. The match felt like the ones we played two months ago, when we were still early in the season and not everyone was on the same wavelength. I hope the Christmas break does not pose the same problem for us, because when we come back our first matches are Gentofte and Middlefart. The best thing we can take from this match is a renewed focus in practice this week so we can finish off 2007 with a win against ASV on Sunday. It is a home match, where we have played well recently, and should hopefully be just what the doctor ordered to get us back on track.

On a positive note from the weekend, my knee is coming along well, and I played without pain on Sunday. I'm a little sore today, but nothing major, and I think the knee brace I've been wearing has helped.