“It was very bad and disappointing,” says coach Arjan Taaij after the loss of volleyball players Lycurgus from Groningen

As a result, the Groningers remain in last place in the championship pool, with Orion and Limax, with a paltry point. Lycurgus must quickly win, otherwise reaching the top two places may become impossible. Both teams that finish there will soon play in the final matches for the Dutch championship.

Lycurgus again showed itself to be a vulnerable team against Dynamo on Saturday evening. Coach Arjan Taaij’s men made too many mistakes to really cause problems for the Apeldoorners. With a 2-0 deficit in sets in the third set, the Groningers lost a 7-12 lead and saw the Apeldoorners come alongside and pass.

‘It was just really bad’

The battle for the big points . With the score 20-19, Maarten Bartels passed against the antenna, while Kay van Dijk then served into the net and hit the block. Center man Luuk Hofhuis also made a net error. Dynamo smashed the set and won 3-0 via a hard pipe attack.

As a result, Lycurgus, which previously lost 3-2 at home to Orion, is still waiting for its first victory. “This was very bad and disappointing,” Taaij concluded. “As a team we were not ready to compete at all. We were not good enough in many areas. Such as sensing the moments in the match and how we responded to them. It was just really bad.”

‘We have to take a step forward’

According to the Groningen coach, Dynamo played well with few mistakes. But if you see what we did wrong in every set, it had little to do with the quality of the opponent. We have to do better ourselves. We also made those mistakes against Orion, although there were fewer of them then. If we make half as many mistakes, we can win the game. But we can’t do that yet. Either we will take a step forward soon, or it will be over.”

Lycurgus lost against Dynamo with the set scores 25-19, 25-19 and 25-23. The Groningers started with two other players in the base in Apeldoorn. American passer-runner Kyle McCauley started instead of fellow countryman Cole Gillis. Assenaar Arjan Westra was allowed to start as Taaij’s central attacker instead of Luuk Hofhuis. Kay van Dijk, Ramon Martinez Gion, Robin Boekhoudt, Jeffrey Klok and Cole Bogner were the other starters.

Lycurgus cannot keep up in the final phase

Lycurgus quickly fell behind and fell behind 8-3 in the first set. The Groningen team then came closer point by point and leveled at 12-12 and 15-15. In the final phase of this set, a driven Dynamo continued to lead. After Martinez Gion hit the block hard for Lycurgus, the home team took a 1-0 lead of 25-19.

The second set went to Dynamo with the same figures, because the Groningers were again unable to keep up in the final phase. After that, Lycurgus was unable to win the third set despite an initial lead.