Round Six: W!

One of the worst parts of our loss to Falkenberg was the fact that we had to wait 13 days to finally play again. Thankfully, we would finally have another home match when we got to play, it had been almost a month since our last one. While we have definitely struggled on the road, we have yet to drop a set in Aspenhallen, our home gym, and last night was no different.

Lund came to town not having won a match yet this year, and when a team says on its website that its goal for the year is to win two matches, you know that this is a match you need to take three points from. Thankfully we did, but it was anything but smooth sailing.

The first game was surprisingly competitive, we just couldn't get anything going when we were serving, and that means that we could never take a lead during most of the game. They were a pretty sloppy team and somehow always find a way to get kills off the block, usually off of mine or Kyle's elbows. It's a really frustrating thing to know you put up a solid block only to get used really low. Luckily, we got our blocking figured out by the end of the game and, after trailing 22-21, scored the last four points to take the game 25-22 on a game-ending stuff block by yours truly.

Game two started out much better for us. We finally shook off some of the rust that was showing after our two week break and stormed out to a 16-11 lead. We gave it right back however and ended up being tied at 17 after a series of bad offensive errors. The rest of the game went back and forth and eventually we turned our third attempt at game point and won 27-25.

Game three was one that we needed to play like we could all the way through to 25 and we did. We jumped out to 8-4 and 16-12 leads at the technical timeouts and the closest they could get it was 21-19. Then I came up to serve and served the game out, including two aces with one on match point. That was basically the highlight of my match as I played probably my worst match out here so far. I still finished with 11 points but made way too many errors, including a couple at crucial times, but hey a win's a win.

It feels really good to finally be back in the win column. We now sit on nine points through six matches, which is less than ideal, but we still have a shot at the Grand Prix in January if we win out these last three matches. This is very doable, as we have definitely gotten past the tough part of our first half schedule. We just need to be a lot better on the road at Vingakers on December 5th and Habo on the 19th. We also play at home against Falkoping on the 12th. Taking nine more points before the holiday break will do wonders for our spot in the standings and hopefully give us a shot at a pretty good playoff seed, but that's all up to us.

I'll update soon. Go Bears!

Round Five

I know I've been bad about writing the last week and quite frankly, I haven't been wanting to talk about our last match at all so I'll just go over it briefly.

Any one who knows me even a little bit knows that there's very few things I hate more than losing (Jersey Shore and Brett Favre, for instance). Whether it's a game of soccer on Xbox or a round of golf or a national championship match, nothing gets me more furious than losing at anything. What makes it even worse is when I know my team has the ability to win and doesn't. And even beyond that is when we don't even give ourselves the opportunity to win.

Last Sunday was one of the longest days of my life. Woke up in Tierp a little before 6 AM (again, those who know me also know I am far from a morning person), hopped in the trusty Tierp Volley van and drove about six hours to Falkenberg, a town all the way down on the west coast, got our asses kicked, and hopped back in the van for the six hour trip home. All in all, 12+ hours of driving, 61 minutes of volleyball.

When I say we got our asses kicked, I mean we got absolutely destroyed in every facet of the game. Our passing was by far the worst we have had in any match, scrimmage, practice, you name it all, all year. This, of course, prevented us from executing the main part of our game plan, setting our middles. Once their serves had us off the net, we really stood no chance. Falkenberg is a big team with very good blocking middles and basically one big gun, their opposite. We really couldn't do anything right the entire match. Passing was terrible, hitting was pretty horrific and we couldn't even seem to get a serve in. Sixty-one minutes, including a ten minute break, was all it took to send us packing. Embarrassing to say the least, especially in front of about 1,000 people. Kyle and I led the way with eight points each, not a big number by any stretch.

Moving on, our practices have been promising this week and we are returning home next weekend where we have played our best ball by far this year. Also, we are hoping for a big, enthusiastic crowd as next Saturday is "Pub Night" at our match. Hopefully a couple brews will get the home crowd pushing us towards a much needed victory.

On the docket this week is more of the same, a couple practices, a couple workouts and a couple floating sessions will hopefully keep me fresh for next weekend. Other than that, still just killing time and trying to stay warm (it's been around 30 and snowing a lot this week, so we don't venture out much). Hopefully I'll be able to write with much better news a week from now! And if you haven't already, click on that banner on the right side of this page to become a fan on Facebook! Thanks, we'll talk soon.

Round Four: Heartbreak in Sollentuna

Hey, sorry for the delay but I haven't felt like writing the last two days after what happened at Sollentuna on Tuesday night. We let another one slip right through our hands to a very beatable opponent.

Things started out well in game one and we were in a great position to take a 1-0 lead in a very important road game when we just couldn't get the job done. We were up three points late (20-17 I believe) and ended up dropping a tough one, 25-23. Game two was just an absolute disaster on all levels for us. We fell down 12-4 early. We couldn't pass, couldn't hit and couldn't serve. That's not a good recipe for a team trying to beat an opponent that will probably be in the top 4 come playoff time. The beating continued even after a sub and a libero change and we ended up losing game two 25-15.

The only thing you can do when you get smoked in a game is try to regroup in the three minute break before the next game starts. The beauty of set play in volleyball is that once a game is done that score means nothing in the next game, it's right back to 0-0. We knew we had a huge hill to climb but we got off to a great start in game three and were able to keep it rolling all the way through to a 25-18 victory.

After this win we knew that this team wasn't doing anything that we couldn't deal with and if we imposed our will on them we could definitely take the next two sets and the match. We knew we had to control their opposite, a Brazilian who gets the bulk of their sets, and keep up with the pace of their offense to the left sides. We did a great job of it in games one and three and knew if we could just keep up with that we could take two points home. Things didn't exactly go as planned, however.

Game four was the most intensely competitive of the match, but again we found ourselves up late and couldn't slam the door. After battling early and through the teens we found ourselves with a 21-18 lead, only four points from forcing game five. That's when the wheels came off. A timeout at 21-18 was followed by an immediate three point run by Sollentuna to tie things up thanks to some shaky passing. We were left playing catch up in a sideout battle for the rest of the match. The match ended on a block at 27-25. The brutal van ride home through the first big snowstorm this winter didn't help any of our moods, that's for sure.

If you would like to watch the match (I don't) you can view it here:
Tierp - Sollentuna
Be warned, however, putting microphones in the huddles is a bad idea. The language isn't for kids.

This was a horribly frustrating match for a bunch of reasons, namely being up by three points late in not one but two games! At that point all you have to do is side out and the game is yours but for some reason it seems like we take those three points for granted and let the other guys off the hook. Volleyball is a unique sport because you have to keep scoring at every opportunity you get. You can't get up 20 points early like in basketball or football and just coast through until the end.

Personally I played a great game one, pretty sure that's where the bulk of my nine kills came, but really didn't have an opportunity to do much the rest of the match because I didn't get set much. I blocked really well and forced some bad passes once I switched to my float serve but the whole match left me feeling like I could have made a bigger difference.

We need to improve our killer instinct if we are going to be contenders late or if we are even going to qualify for the Grand Prix in January. Right now we sit at six points, six back from first place Orkelljunga. You get three points for a win in three or four sets, two for a win in five and one for a loss in five so even pushing Tuesday's match to five games really could have helped us.

Luckily, we have a quick turnaround before our next match. We play at Falkenberg on Sunday. It's going to be a long day. Leaving Tierp at 7 AM, playing in Falkenberg at 5 PM and then right back on the road home, hopefully with three points and Monday off. I'll update soon, thanks for reading!

Highlights from the Hylte Match

Here's a highlight video my coach put together of our match against Hylte this Saturday. I'm number 7 in blue.