RSV-Madhouse celebrates tenth German Championship

A record-breaking crowd witnesses a safe home-win over Skywheelers
The biggest crowd so far, 1,900 spectators, came to see RSV Lahn-Dill on Saturday night win their tenth German Championship. With this in the second half unthreatened 72:40 (13:12/34:24/53:29) home win over Mainhatten Skywheelers the Middle Hesse team from Wetzlar defended their title and now are, despite the personnel changes, still Germany’s Number One. 
Never before has August-Bebel-Sporthalle welcomed so many visitors, the queues already started to build around two hours before the game. The queues, in the end 1,900 people, were also the reason for the game starting 20 minutes late, but also with every seat, and spot, filled. The audience had to wait almost three minutes for the first basket, but finally Dirk Koehler started the cheers in the cautious first quarter. 
From that point onwards an initially level game developed between the two teams, who analysed each other’s tactics thoroughly prior to the game. Whilst RSV mainly put their big players on the line and scored with Joe Bestwick (8:4, 5th min) and Dirk Koehler (19:16, 14th min), Frankfurt had Andi Kress to keep his team close to the opposition with early eight points. But after the 19:18 (15th min) RSV Lahn-Dill took off step by step up until half-time. The foundation for this advance was an almost spotless number of free-throws, taking advantage of a rising number of fouls for Frankfurt and therefore taking the lead. 
After the change-over it was time for the early decision and by that also the early decision for the Championship. Three quick baskets by Captain Michael Paye & Co pushed the score to 40:24 and gave the team a psychological advantage. Safe rebounds against Frankfurt’s falling hit-ratio, and, following  confident and professional play, led the score-board to change quickly to 47:27 (28th min) and 57:33 (33rd min).
During the last minutes leading up to the desperately awaited final siren the audience turned into a madhouse, celebrating their team’s efforts and kind of themselves as well with Mexican Waves. After another couple of successful baskets by a strong Thomas Boehme (61:37, 37th min) and National Player Gesche Schuenemann (67:40, 39th min) the 1,900 spectators were already giving standing ovations to the new German Champion.  
„This title really means a lot to this young and new team. I would put it up there with the very first title in 1998” said RSV-Head-Coach Nicolai Zeltinger after the game, giving his emotions free rein in front of the cameras of Hessisches Fernsehen. After a season with ups and downs the RSV-family was able to lie in each other’s arms yet again, whilst players Bjoern Lohmann, Christopher Huber and Joe Bestwick, whose family came over to Germany especially for the game, as well as Assistant Coach Ralf Neumann and technician Rene Talaga were celebrating their first German Championship. On the other side was the defeated team Frankfurt, who were worthy opposition and having had their best season in twenty years could be just as proud as the Champions RSV Lahn-Dill. The game was followed by a happy and merry night with the obligatory celebratory cigar, going on until the early Sunday hours. 
Lahn-Dill: Joe Bestwick (21), Dirk Koehler (16), Thomas Boehme (11), Michael Paye (10), Jan Haller (4), Gesche Schuenemann (4), Marco Zwerger (4), Thomas Gundert (2), David Amend, Christopher Huber, Bjoern Lohmann, Felix Schell.
Frankfurt: Andi Kress (12), Sebastian Magenheim (10), Sebastian Wolk (8), Lars Lehmann (4), Benjamin Lenatz (4), Johannes Hengst (1), Jan-Niklas Neuroth (1), Anne Briessmann, Maria Kuehn, Sven Diedrich, Tim Diedrich. 

RSV-Magazin Defense