The Berlin Volleys gave Cedric Enard a win in his 100th Bundesliga game as head coach. Although heavily weakened by replacements, the German champions won 3-1 at United Volleys Frankfurt on Sunday (25:21, 25:23, 20:25, 25:21).
With two games to go, the capital club can no longer be pushed off the top of its intermediate group.
The Berliners went to the Main without their regulars Sergej Grankin, Ruben Schott, Nehemiah Mote and Cody Kessel. All four players have been rested for the two crucial Champions League group games on Wednesday and Thursday at Zenit St Petersburg. That gave the reactivated middle blocker Georg Klein his debut of the season in the starting lineup.
The Berlin B team initially went to work in a highly concentrated manner. The clearest advantages of the guest lay in the serve. Matthew West, who replaced Grankin in the setter position, staged numerous successful attacks via Timothee Carle and Samuel Tuia.
Volleys not always sovereign
When the score was 11:11 in the third round, however, the BR Volleys broke. The team had problems with the acceptance, which the opponent consistently used to a comfortable 18:13 lead and finally to win the set.
However, the Berliners found their way back to their game and in the fourth section they pulled away 16:10 when Jeffrey Jendryk served until the second technical time-out.
Victory was no longer in danger after that, even if Frankfurt was able to reduce the gap to three points in the meantime (15:18).