82:55-success against the Dolphins – Captain Paye plays outstandingly
The start into the new year came with a convincing effort from nine-time German Champion RSV Lahn-Dill. The top game on the 13th day of the Bundesliga bestowed the lately very successful Dolphins Trier their biggest defeat so far with 82:55(20:9/42:24/64:39) and leaves RSV still in a good fighting position with Thueringen and Zwickau for the lead.
“We made very good use of the Christmas break and played extremely concentrated and intelligently.” says a happy and relaxed RSV-head-coach Nicolai Zeltinger about his team’s successful home-performance. About 1,000 spectators saw, most of all in the first half, how the Middle Hesse team defended RBBL-Top-Scorer Dirk Passiwan effectively and only let him score four points in twenty minutes. “This was probably our best defence against Dirk ever.” Zeltinger was happy about his team’s great effort.
The game was opened by sovereignly acting and directing Captain Michael Paye, who managed to turn the 2:2 (2nd min) into a 14:2 (4th min) almost all by himself. He was served great passes by Centres Joe Bestwick and Dirk Koehler, who dominated under their own basket. Together Koehler and Bestwick got 28 rebounds and therefore had a massive impact on the astonishing score of 48:27 in rebounds.
Via 22:11 (11th min) and 35:17 (17th min) the team were working on running in an obvious and invulnerable win already at half time. Only the 24-year-old Australian talent Kim Robins seemed fairly unimpressed with his host’s pace and pressure and showed, like his RSV-counterpart Thomas Boehme, a very strong performance. “It’s great to see Tommy’s development over the past six month, how dangerous he is offensively and how intelligent he already acts for his young age.” says Coach Nicolai Zeltinger.
After half-time the game continued the same way at first, even though Trier’s Dirk Passiwan gave a glimpse of how dangerous he can be from distance. RSV took off to 60:32 (26th min) and led the game to an early decision, before the Dolphins were able to react. Passiwan closed the gap slightly with 13 points to 64:41 (31st min) and later to 70:49 (36th min), but four points by both Forward Thomas Gundert and Captain Michael Paye drowned these efforts quickly (78:49, 39th min).
“This was a great performance, I’m very contend.” say Nicolai Zeltinger, and his Assistant-Coach Ralf Neumann adds: “This was setting the base for more, now we have an intense week of training ahead of us, before we have our game against Zwickau the coming Saturday which will give direction to the table.” The game will help decide which position RSV will get in the Play-Offs. At the moment there three teams in the lead, and a success in Saxon would open the chances on getting the first spot, whilst a defeat could also mean spot number three. “By winning against St. Vith this Saturday Zwickau managed to overtake us, but we are determined to get our spot back on the weekend.” says Nicolai Zeltinger about the challenge ahead.
Lahn-Dill: Michael Paye (28), Joe Bestwick (16), Dirk Köhler (14), Thomas
Böhme (12), Felix Schell (6), Jan Thomas Gundert (4), Haller (2),
Christopher Huber, Björn Lohmann.
Trier: Dirk Passiwan (18/1), Kim Robins (18/2), Tyler Saunders (7),
Hugh Anderson (4), Brad Baugh (4), Peter Müller (2), Dirk Schmitz (2),
Florian Ewertz.