Anyone who wanted to watch the game of the BR Volleys against the Grizzlys Giesen on Saturday evening ran the risk of ending up in a completely different place. In fact, “Giesen” is not the town in Hesse that most people probably think of when they hear “Giesen”, but a municipality in Lower Saxony. In terms of travel time, it would be annoying to confuse the two cities, because it takes just three hours from Berlin to get to Giesen in Lower Saxony, while Gießen in Hesse takes five hours. In terms of sightseeing, however, it would be less unfortunate to confuse the two locations.
Apart from a few houses and fields, Giesen doesn’t have much to offer. But that doesn’t really matter. The home games of the grizzlies are finally played in the nearby city of Hildesheim.
On Saturday, 15 members of the Berlin Volleys fan club “7. Man”.
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In front of the bus, the orange scarves, shirts and shoes could be seen from afar. Bernd Paul, who founded the fan club, greeted all members personally and his colleague Carsten Buchhauser announced with a smile that it would be the first major away trip in a long time. In view of the tight schedule of the volleys, Paul used the outward journey to discuss the next steps: Wednesday cup quarter-finals in Frankfurt, Saturday Bundesliga in Lüneburg and a little later the Champions League in Lisbon. When the bus finally reached Hildesheim, the plans were interrupted for a moment and “Ole Ola, Berlin is back!” Echoed through the bus.
Arrived in the hall, the Berlin fans unpacked their flags and decorated the surrounding rows of seats with huge orange banners. This prompted the hall announcer to inquire over the microphone how she thought the game would go. For their 3-0 prediction, they earned loud protests from the opposing fans.
After the match, the players were cheered once again by the members of the “7. Man “
The prognosis was not so unlikely given the fact that the volleys had only made a single set this season. But it wasn’t that easy after all. In the end they were able to prevail against Giesen with 3: 1 (25:21, 20:25, 25:15, 25:14), but they lost a set.
The Berliners started with strong serves and Marek Sotola brought his team into the lead early thanks to an ace. He was cheered for this by his colleague Benjamin Patch, who danced lively on the sidelines. In the second set, however, the volleys had a hard time and were suddenly five points behind. Outside attacker Ruben Schott, who was substituted on, could not change that either.
“At the beginning the game was a rollercoaster ride. We got off to a good start in the first set, but we overslept the second, “said Schott,” we weren’t stable in assuming and made some wrong decisions in the attack. “
However, the volleys did not let the loss of a set unsettle them. Thanks to Schott they stabilized their assumption and captain Sergej Grankin shone again in the pass, so that the Berliners dominated the last two sentences quite clearly. “In the last two sentences we found our way back to our quality. But Giesen was very combative today, they deservedly won the second set ”, analyzed Schott. He is looking forward to the upcoming games in the cup and in the Champions League. “The mood in the team is still good. Now we have to think from game to game because the exhausting weeks are still to come, ”said Schott
After the match, the players were cheered once again by the members of the “7. Manns ”before both buses started their long journey home to Berlin.
Actually, he would have been cheered by part of his family, said Ruben Schott, which had already surprised him because the hall was practically a day’s tour away. “Fortunately, we noticed in time that you were talking about Gießen and not Giesen.”
