VfB Friedrichshafen
A near sellout-crowd of 1’370 spectators at Generali Sportarena enjoyed a match of the highest level between the second and third-placed teams in the German Bundesliga. Starting with the first set, both teams were giving it everything at every point. At 20-20 the local crowd almost physically carried the home team to winning the first set. UNTERHACHING lost a bit of its confidence after that, FRIEDRICHSHAFEN seized the chance and evened the match. The “Häfler” even turned the tables around, winning the third set against a now nervous looking UNTERHACHING that made easy mistakes, especially from the serving line.
It didn’t look good at first for the hosts in the fourth set, as at the first technical time-out Generali was down 4:8. With the score standing at 8:11 Raymaekers and Idi each got a yellow card, a situation that somehow ignited head coach Mihai Paduretu’s team. Especially captain Christian Dünnes stepped up. Generali turned the table, went up 14:13 – and after some great serves by Alex Shafranovich pulled away, winning set number four.
“It is these small moments that make you win such a game”, libero Sebastian Prüsener said after the match: “There you have Alex making a series of huge serves, you get your heads up high again and then you turn the match”.
UNTERHACHING kept their rhythm in the tie-break, at least being up by two points from the start. “Hats off to my team”, Paduretu said, “we never gave up, and then the crowd helped us a lot”.
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