Round Ten: The Rematch

After a successful bronze medal match against Örkelljunga in the Grand Prix it was probably a good thing that they would be our first opponent of the second half on Sunday. We sent a pretty good message through a hard-fought five set win and all we had to do was continue that play on Sunday to get our first three points of the new year. That's exactly what we did.

OVK is a very solid team that started out the season on fire by winning their first seven matches including a sweep of us in week two. It seemed like they would run away with the points title at that point and be the undisputed number one seed in the playoffs. They have hit a rough patch recently though and have slipped into third place. We, on the other hand, are a team headed in the right direction. This would be our second league match with our highly successful new lineup and we knew there was no reason we shouldn't take three points home on Sunday night.

Set one started out just like we thought it would, in a battle. Both teams were playing really aggressively and it was a battle all the way to the end of the first set. Eventually we got out on top with leads of 16-15 and 21-19 and were able to finish the set strong with a 25-23 win. It was probably the most aggressive we've been all year and it paid off greatly. Set two was arguably our best all year. We jumped on top of them right away, leading 8-6 and the 16-11 and never looking back. They couldn't get anything going offensively and their frustration showed as the game went on. It was nice to be on that side of a set for once. We went on to win 25-18 and take a 2-0 lead into the ten minute halftime break.

While the ten minute break allows some time to rest and regroup for a team down 0-2, it also kills all momentum for a team up 2-0 and makes winning the third set that much more challenging. We came out flat in the third set as the ball started bouncing their way a little more. We lost 25-20 and had to regroup before a crucial fourth set. There's no way we could allow them to push the match to five on our home court., and we didn't.

We dominated the fourth set pretty easily, jumping out to leads of 8-4 and 16-10 before finishing even stronger at 25-15. They couldn't seem to do anything right, and even their subs couldn't get passed our block. It was definitely the best all around match we played all year. We blocked 14 balls in four sets and touched a ton more which allowed our defense to pick up a ton of digs. We also only had five hitting errors the whole match, a great improvement over pretty much every match we've played all year.

I played well and am getting more and more comfortable in the middle. I had 12 points on six blocks and six kills and touched a ton of balls blocking, which goes a long way to frustrating the opponents hitters.

Up next is a road game against Linköping on Sunday, hopefully continuing in the right direction. Thanks for reading!

If you want to watch the match it will be online at volleykanalen.se for the rest of the season!