More libero’s than opposites

In the absence of your usual reporter, who thoroughly enjoyed his leave from the strict commandos regime, you will receive the match report from someone else this week.

Last Friday (01-11), Gents commandos was finally able to show their true team during the official opening weekend. With a new uniform, new yell and a roaring homecrowd at the start of the evening, there is nothing we would miss. Well that was obviously wrong, with few of our regular troops being on leave to other places and one of our setters unfortunately being at the infirmary. Due to some last minute changes in the garrison we were not able to rally all national reserves and added up in a formation that was new for many of us: playing with two liberos while only having one diagonal. This did however not stop the armed forces from going it with full force against the opponent of that day that came from an hostile settlement in the achterhoek, named Borculo. Before the match we quickly figured that the opposing side was in fact even more challenged in filling their team than we were, leaving them with exactly 6 players and no coach.

In the first set, the special forces in orange and purple quickly were long tied with their opponents in blue, but once we got to the big points we noticed that our target practice at the shooting range was of good use, and with some great hits from all over the field we managed to win this with 25-20.

Of course this kept us longing for more in the second set and with good artillery pressure from the serve line and back court attacks we managed to put a lot of difficulties at the opposing side. While the referee made some very dubious calls and in many cases just abstained from whistling for a point altogether we did not let this bother us and we pulled through. While we fought hard and applied tactical changes, some more dubious calls followed. Luckily our air support from the stands was on fire, leading to the referee making an obscene gesture for which he primarily required his middle finger. Nevertheless the point was ours and quickly the rest of the set followed: 25-16.

The third set our commandos were getting even further pumped. This again lead to a lot of fire power which raked up the points. The opponent visibly struggling, we even listened to some advice provided by our commander and put un the pressure using tactical balls to find all the weak points in their defenses. No dirt in the air: 25-13.

Then the fourth and final set. Leading with 3-0 gave us full confidence that we would pull through with this final point as well. Unfortunately, you don’t play volleyball and your own and the opponent was not particularly fond of our plans. They picked up our hard driven attacks, they received our serves and they even managed to exploit our own defenses causing a lot of blocking issues. Still, till 22-19 everything seemed to end in a 4-0 victory, so our opponents once again decided to step up and were fully determined to take that last point back home. Trying not to lose our nerves we fought back hard, but they got closer and a long battle of setpoints followed, coming to a climax (or perhaps more an anticlimax) at 27-28. Our commandos felt the pressure and needed to win this point to stay in the race. The opponent served. A strong pass followed. A set towards the back. A hit on the opponent hands. And off their hands into the antenna! Good, we managed to stay on the track to win it all. Unfortunately, our referee had other plans and indicated that the point would go to the opposing side. Or well, it was not fully clear what he signaled. Did we get a point? Did they get a point? Do we play the point again? A few more minutes passed till it eventually got clear that we lost this last point and therefore also the fourth set. Quite the anticlimax, but nevertheless a good 3-1 victory where we showed a strong fight.

Commander Van der Horst received the medal of honor for his strong work and we are more than ready to get on with the next fight. See you there!