US had a good fight against the leader

VoV, 09-02-2023. 5:57 uur. So first of all, I have promised you that my next game report will be in Dutch. I have tried but still difficult according to our coach… But thanks to my wonderful team mates trying to teach me!

On Saturday we’ve travelled to Saint Anthonis, after all of us having recovered from Covid again. It felt good that the locker room was full again and to have everyone back! The vibe was good and we felt ready to shine after a week of training hard!

Of course we knew that it wouldn’t be easy against the fierce leader of the competition, but as quoted in our game preparation from Chris we knew that: “You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can.”

A solid start from Somas: With this mindset we started the first set feeling competitive, but we were under pressure with Somas’ serve from the very first point. We managed to keep up with them and showed some good volleyball throughout the set, especially Anneke and Maaike getting some nice kills on the net. But unfortunately we couldn’t keep up with our opponents who were defending very well and they took the set (17:25). Similarly to that, we couldn’t find the right solutions in attacking and passing and also lost the second set 13:25.

A turn-around in the 3rd set: Something had to change if we wanted to find an answer to the offensive team of Somas, so Mable (together with Frummel) came in to stabilise the passing and she showed us that we can still fully count on her. And Anouk was on fire on the net, scoring some really nice points and playing up to her full potential (so proud of you Twinnie)! Fleur managed to put us in a good position even in difficult transition plays and her block surprised our opponent’s attackers a few times. This is how we won the set 25:21. Seeing the team play this way gave us a lot of confidence!

The leader took it eventually: In the fourth set we kept up with Somas quite well in the beginning, using the energy from the set before. But in the end we couldn’t manage to reproduce the same level and lost this one 18:25.

Of course it’s tough to lose, but we still walked away with a better feeling than last week, and I’m sure we are ready to fight for the win in this week’s derby against Spaarnestad! See you all at the Amstelcampus on Saturday!

gh @ VoV, matchreport by #9, Julia Hödl.  Foto johnspictures.nl