81:37-win against promoted SGK Heidelberg
Title-defendants RSV Lahn-Dill started their 22nd season in the first division successfully. Steve Serio celebrated his comeback at the premiere at home, as well as his team’s 81:37 (22:8/42:16/61:23)-win against the very young team SGK Heidelberg.
“I’m very happy with our start into the season. Our rhythm and hit rate showed that for the first time in years we finally had a steady and continuous preparation-phase.” says RSV-coach Nicolai Zeltinger after the game. The 42-year-old is referring to the five weeks before the first game, which for a change have not been interrupted by international competitions and therefore missing national players.
That was definitely noticeable, most of all in the first half, when the hosting team played as one in front of 850 spectators at August-Bebel-Sporthalle. Heidelberg struggled predominantly developing their game, being put under pressure by RSV. And despite 17 months not having worn a RSV-vest, it seemed like Serio had never been away from his team. U23-national-player Nico Dreimueller scored the first shot in the first minute, but the Hesse team managed to take off, via 14:4 (7th min) to 32:8 (16th min). “We are very flexible this year with our line-ups, and have tried out various possibilities” Zeltinger is happy about this new-won strength of his team on court.
After half-time the German Champions from 2003 found better into the game. The very young, but very talented team seemed a lot calmer after changeover. Whilst in the first half only top-scorer Andre Hopp seemed to be there really, there was more to see from Dreimueller and Leon-Ole Schoeneberg. But RSV stayed where they were and kept their defence up with different line-ups, as well as displaying a great offence with a convincing hit-rate of 64 per cent.
The team went from 57:18 (27th min) and 67:25 (33rd min) towards an invulnerable win, and RSV-captain Michael Paye became top-scorer with 24 points. All in all, the team presented themselves very well this early on in the season. “Of course, we still have a lot of room for improvement, we especially have to press more in our defence, but we already acted as a team and athletically fit.” Zeltinger and his team will be travelling to last year’s playoff-team Thueringen, for a definite top-game.
Lahn-Dill: Michael Paye (24), Joe Bestwick (16), Steve Serio (11), Thomas Boehme (8), Jan Haller (8), Dirk Koehler (8), Thomas Gundert (4), Felix Schell (2), Annabel Breuer, Christopher Huber, Bjoern Lohmann, Marco Zwerger.
Heidelberg: André Hopp (19), Leon-Ole Schoeneberg (8), Nico Dreimueller (6), Christian Gumpert (2), Thomas Gumpert (2), Johannes Ernst, Kai Frank, Viktor Hammerschmidt, Benjamin Scherke, Philip Schorp, Stefanie Wilke (n.e.).