Tough success saves second spot
Fighting strong but lacking on offence second league team RSV Lahn-Dill II managed to decide the smaller Hesse-derby in Frankfurt in their favour. Despite the 51:40 (12:8/19:16/35:29)-success the Wetzlar team had their difficulties against promoted team Frankfurt, but were able to rely on a solid defence.
They started off perfectly against the Skywheelers, who had to play without Bernd Hofscheier. The team dominated the game early on going via 8:2 (3rd min) and 10:4 (5th min), and freezing the hosting team with their press-defence. Frankfurt’s coach Heike Friedrich reacted with a time-out and tactical changes which managed to confuse RSV Lahn-Dill effectively.
“We lost our focus and order when Frankfurt came back with a faster line-up.” was RSV-coach Daniel Stange’s analysis after the game and having witnessed that not even usual top-scorer Kai Gerlach got to his normal form. Until half-time and the 19:16 the 26-year-old only managed 4 points and was in line with the generally low stats of his team with a 25% hit-rate.
After the change-over both teams improved slightly, and especially Kai Gerlach came back a lot stronger. In the third quarter he was responsible for 10 of 19 points and was very well supported by team-captain David Amend, who was often only stoppable by fouls and made 8 out of ten free-throws. That way the game went via 33:22 (28th min) towards 46:32 (36th min) and was a safe game after all.
“This game was certainly far from aesthetic, but we made up for a weak offence with a strong defence.” described RSV-coach Daniel Stange the game afterwards. Those away-points at least help RSV II to secure their second spot in the table, at least until their match against so far unbeaten Rolling Devils Kaiserslautern on the 23rd of November.
Frankfurt: Heike Friedrich (12), Tim Diedrich (11), Christoph Spitz (7), Sebastian Arnold (4), Sven Diedrich (4), Nora Schratz (2), Tibor Breinersdorfer, Jan Hecker, Michael Schmidt.
Lahn-Dill: Kai Gerlach (19), David Amend (14), Felix Schell (14), Annabel Breuer (2), Christopher Huber (2), Carsten Crombach, Barbara Gross, Tristan Paar, Selina Rausch.