After 35 days without a competitive game, the BR Volleys successfully started the second round of the volleyball league. The German champions prevailed against VfB Friedrichshafen.
The five weeks without game practice have left their mark on Berlin Volleys. “It was to be expected that we wouldn’t reach our highest level again after such a long break,” said libero Santiago Danani.
At the German volleyball champions, not everything went smoothly at the start of the intermediate round against Bundesliga rivals VfB Friedrichshafen on Saturday, despite a deserved 3-1 (25:20, 18:25, 25:22, 25:19) win. “It was up and down,” said winger Ruben Schott.
It was convenient for the Volleys that their opponent from Lake Constance is in a similar dilemma and that the players there have not trained fully in the recent past due to the corona.
The exciting, but also very error-prone game on both sides was ultimately decided by two substitutions by Volleys coach Cedric Enard.
In the late phase of the second set, the Frenchman brought in fresh energy with Benjamin Patch for Marek Sotola and Cody Kessel, who has recovered from an ankle injury, for Timothee Carle, which revived the attacking game in the long term.
The jumper Patch, 2.05 meters tall, scored 17 points for his team. Not least thanks to the precise passes from Sergej Grankin, the 27-year-old had an attack rate of 71 percent. Kessel, on the other hand, also contributed eight points to the win. “The change gave us new energy,” said Schott.
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This energy was also necessary. Because in the second set, the BR Volleys had stumbled powerfully. When the Brazilian Daniel Muniz served, Friedrichshafen scored a series of 8:0 points and turned a 11:10 lead into a 19:10. “You can always lose a sentence like that,” said Danani, “but you can’t let it stress you out and panic.”
The BR Volleys don’t get a breather after the win against Friedrichshafen. On Wednesday they want to get their third win in three games at home against Benfica in the group stage of the Champions League.
On Saturday, the next difficult intermediate round encounter in the league at the SWD powervolleys Düren is on the agenda. “We’re now waiting for consistently high-level matches and we’re looking forward to that,” said coach Enard.