Playing volleyball against that weird football club

The week after our first, and very successful, cup match, we were ready to go again. It was Twente '05's turn (you know, that football club) to compete against our unstoppable team. 

In high spirits, we got changed and headed to the hall. There we had to wait a while, because another match was still in full swing on our court. Fortunately, it didn't take long before the referee's whistle announced the end of the set. Now we could get started. Right? To our horror, we saw that the teams switched sides, and that there wasn't even a toss for the serve of the fifth set... We had just been watching the end of the third set, and the clock definitely said it was our turn to play. Anyway, it's now 2-1 on the court, so after this set it will surely be over. Right? When 25 points were reached, we looked anxiously at the referee: is this the end? Can we play now? The referee blows his whistle... and a fifth set is played. Our team is now sitting in a row on the floor, with our backs against the wall, waiting restlessly. 

At a quarter past nine, we finally start warming up on the court, even though our match should have started at nine o'clock. 

Unfortunately, the first set did not go entirely as planned, with a loss of 25-22. The second set went a little worse: 25-12. But in the third set, we began our redemption arc and won 18-25. We started off in the fourth set, but unfortunately we also lost that one 25-23. Maybe not so unstoppable after all.

Of course, it’s never the referee's fault, but this referee was something special. Balls hit on the line? Ooh, that’s a difficult one. Let’s go with a double fault. Line fault? What’s that? A ball that’s clearly smashed out of bounds but the team is shouting for a block touch? Yeah, let’s go with a double fault again. Even when our opposite, Tijn, received that ball, fell to the ground, the ball going straight up and down upon him again, decided to play the second ball as well, the referee didn’t whistle. Apparently, that’s just allowed in the Pathmoshal. Some of these miscarriages of justice didn’t go our way, but afterwards we of course shamelessly made use of it. What also should be mentioned is that due to some frustration on the side of the field one of our coaches was almost sent off. I won’t mention which one :)

Even though the result wasn’t what we had hoped for, we did enjoy our first after-match snacks afterwards: a delicious, pink cheese cake made by Michiel!

Since we’ve lost this match, we have to win the next one if we want any chance to make it to playoffs. 

To be continued!