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!