For the opening of the new season, RSV Lahn-Dill manoeuvers clear of all trouble and takes the lead in the Bundesliga after an impressive 102-35 at Trier. Richard Peter, who played his first game for Lahn-Dill, had an outstanding game, scoring 13 points and adding six assists and eight rebounds.
Even though the Lahn-Dill team had less than two weeks to prepare for the season after the Paralympic games, it looked quite as if they already integrated Peter perfectly into their play. Head coach Zeltinger fielded him as substitute point guard for Michael Paye, who is still on leave after the Paralympics, and Peter played that role as if he had been there for ages.
It took Lahn-Dill just nine seconds until Dirk Koehler opened the scoring by layup, and a few minutes into the game, Trier had to concede that there is nobody on the roster to make up for the loss of Dirk Passiwan. Passiwan – as it was announced earlier this week – left the team to join the squad of the Italian champion Dream Team Taranto. A 21-0 scoring run stretched Lahn-Dill´s lead to a devastating 27-4. And just after Trier regained some confidence by hitting two shots, Joey Johnson sent in a three-pointer to close off the quarter.
For six minutes after that, Lahn-Dill´s pace was gone, allowing Trier to cut the lead to 23, but Marco Zwerger and the Beijing silver medallists Gesche Schünemann and Annika Zeyen helped Lahn-Dill to regain strength. Lahn-Dill kept extended the margin steadily and hurried towards a massive win.
"I´m impressed by the performance of my team at this very early stage of the season. We had 20 assists today, which shows that we already play very well together, and we kept the boards clear with a total 25 rebounds for Joey Johnson and Dirk Koehler", said Coach Zeltinger after the game.
Trier: Andre Hopp (17/3 3pt. ), Sascha Gergele (5), Viktor Hammerschmidt (5), Marco Hopp (4), Uwe Bleiker-Schulze (2), Dirk Schmitz (2), Frank Doesgen, Peter Müller, Peter Schwickert.
Lahn-Dill: Joey Johnson (28/2 3pt.), Dirk Köhler (23), Marco Zwerger (14), Richard Peter (13), Kai Gerlach (7), Gesche Schünemann (7/1 3pt), Felix Schell (4), Annika Zeyen (4), Thomas Gundert (2), Jan Kampmann (2).