Tough home-success for Wetzlar Rollis – Strong last quarter enough for win
A streaky effort and a strong last quarter were enough for RSV Lahn-Dill II to get the third spot in the Second Division Table. With 65:51 (17:15/28:28/37:47) the Wetzlar team defeated SV reha Augsburg and therefore sealed their relegation.
Up until the last quarter it was the team from Augsburg who were dominating the game and at 37:47 (30th min) could hope for a sensation. Only in the last quarter RSV Lahn-Dill II managed to turn the game around and pinioned the opposition against the wall. “We started way too slow, which strengthened Augsburg” said RSV-Coach Daniel Stange, “we needed the obvious deficit to wake us up.”
At the beginning the team started well, being in front with 5:2 (3rd min) and 15:10 (8th min), but struggled in defence with the guests, who managed easy points and moved to 15:13 (9th min) after a three by Juergen Heinrich. They continued in the same way seamlessly into the second quarter, when the RSV offence came to a halt and the team had only little to hold against a determined Augsburg team.
After the 19:15 (11th min) by Mark Beissert the hosting team had 6 minutes without getting a point and had to be grateful that Augsburg weakened in the end of the third quarter, preventing an even bigger deficit (19:21, 17th min). After half-time and a 28:28-score the guests stayed the more active team and pressed RSV Lahn-Dill II further into defence. A second three by Heinrich leading to 33:39 (27th min) opened Augsburg’s strongest phase and within 2 minutes the guests had taken off to a two-digit advance (35:45, 28th min).
In the last quarter the Hesse team was able to use the pent-up frustration to their advantage and were able to release it onto Augsburg. A full-court press by the team surrounding top scorer Marco Zwerger destroyed Augsburgs game and a 12:2-run within 5 minutes evened the game out (49:49, 35th min). Whilst the guests only got to score 2 points, RSV managed 28 points in the remaining minutes and therefore got their deserved result, which sadly did not mirror the whole game. For the top game next weekend in Heidelberg RSV Lahn-Dill II will have to up their game, to stand against the unbeaten top-of-the-table team.
Lahn-Dill: Zwerger (24), Beissert (17), Huber (8), Amend (5), Wittmann (5), Paar (4), Arras (2), Gerter, Groß, Schneidmüller.
Augsburg: Heinrich (27/2 Dreier), Grubmüller (18), Schedlbauer (4), Nolle (2), Harnisch, Ladzik, Meitner, Schiffer.