It´s not been the best performance of RSV Lahn-Dill this year, but their 90-49 (24-12/43-33/64-31) against arch-rivals Heidelberg was just enough to make it into the 2009 final four and to celebrate the beginning of two weeks of Christmas break in a cheerful mood at the Heidelberg "Weihnachtsmarkt"
The Wetzlar side started into the game as expected, leading Heidelberg 20-6 after just 6 minutes. They had prepared extraordinarily well to keep Heidelberg´s best scorer André Hopp at bay. He didn´t score until half time and finished at just 6 points, about one third of his average. Nevertheless, it wasn´t an all-carefree evening for about 50 Lahn-Dill fans who had travelled to Heidelberg. Ivica Jozic sank some mid-range shots for the hosts and Benny Lenatz added another six points, and when Jozic scored another two to cut Lahn-Dill´s lead to just 4 points (37-33, 17′), RSV´s coach Nicolai Zeltinger called for a time out.
"I´m satisfied with how we started into the game, but we performed really poor until half time", said Zeltinger.
It was Marco Zwerger, who now took over and scored twice from fast breaks, to calm down the coach a bit, and when Kai Gerlach and Thomas Gundert added six points each, Zeltinger´s cheerful mood had returned, finally. "Our game was far from perfect today, and our starters didn´t perform as usual. But our subs worked at their best, and changed the course of the game to give us a big win. I think we can fell comfortable about the upcoming tasks because our bench players can really make a difference", said Zeltinger.
Heidelberg: Ivica Jozic (17), Benjamin Lenatz (11), Uwe Burkart (9), Johannes Ernst (6), André Hopp (6), Matthias Fichtner, Thomas Gumpert, Talat Kaya, Benjamin Scherke, Stefanie Wilke.
Lahn-Dill: Michael Paye (25/1 3pointer), Dirk Köhler (14), Kai Gerlach (10), Marco Zwerger (10), Thomas Gundert (9), Gesche Schünemann (7), Joey Johnson (6), Jan Kampmann (5), Felix Schell (2), Annika Zeyen (2).