In just over an hour and fifteen minutes, the volleyball players of Visser Assen/Sudosa-Desto were outside again in Borne. Sudosa-Desto did not give up against Apollo 8, which effortlessly won 3-0.
Sudosa-Desto was not involved in the first match in the A-pool. While Mark Afman’s team had won twice against Apollo 8 in the regular competition and recently narrowly lost in five sets in the semi-finals of the cup, the Assen team had no chance this time.
Afman changed what he could, all players got playing time, but he never found the right piece of the puzzle to get a winning formation in line. “We didn’t give up. You always play a match like that during a season. I just wish we hadn’t run into that now.”
“We’re usually tough and we fight back.”
After losing the first set 25-18, the guests seemed to recover in the second set. Sudosa-Desto even took a 12-8 lead, only to fall behind 13-12 again moments later. “Usually we are tough and fight back, but now we conceded a series of points and it was over.”
Passing and attacking were insufficient and the team also managed to create too little pressure when serving. Whichever attacker playmaker Danique Aardema, or her replacement Beau de Vries, chose, simple points were hardly scored. Apollo 8 controlled the second set and took a 2-0 lead at 25-22.
At the beginning of the third set, Sudosa-Desto struggled again. To then concede ten points in a row – a 10-9 lead turned into a 19-10 deficit – which was the final final blow.
‘We can do much better and we must do much better’
Ultimately, Apollo 8 took the set 25-16. “We can do much better and we must do much better, we all know that. Such a match can only happen once. On Saturday we finally play at home again, I can hardly remember the last time, but then we have to be there against Zwolle.”