We went down to Middelfart for the second leg of the series with a pretty positive attitude after the loss Saturday. Our traveling fans made it a good atmosphere in Lillebæltshallen and managed to drown out the Middelfart cheers at certain points as well, which I know all the players appreciated.
The first set didn't go particularly well for us as we missed a lot of serves and didn't side out very well. Middelfart had a pretty big lead for most of the set, and when they got to around 20 Morten and I were switched, and he did a good job of getting some rhythm into the sideout attacks, but it just wasn't enough. They ended up taking the set easily, 17-25.
The second, third, and fourth sets were all really close affairs. Morten started each set and Jens and I came in as part of double switches in the late points to get some extra attacking and blocking. As a whole our serving settled down a bit (though still not up to our usual standard) and when it did we were able to earn some counterattacks. We came up with some timely blocks and sided out on the first ball pretty well also. We took the second set 26-24 and lost a close third set 23-25, but with out backs against the wall won a big victory in the fourth, 25-20.
The deciding set was close the entire way, and when we sided out at 6-6 Tue came in for Jesper to serve. He served about five balls in a row to give us a ton of momentum and a good lead for the final push. The rest of the way we sided out on the first serve every time with the exception of one ball, and Jens won a really important sideout ball to give us match point. Middelfart sided out though and on the next reception I set Niels on the outside who put the match away for us.
Despite giving Middelfart an entire set's worth of points on missed serves alone, we definitely upped our level of play from the previous match. As a whole though our team agrees there is still another gear that we can kick it in to, so it will just be a matter of finding that on Saturday night, in what should be an exciting finish to the series.
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