Top-of-the-table team win against last team
Despite lacking the personnel last Saturday, RBBL top-of-the-table team RSV Lahn-Dill lived up to their names against soon-to-be relegated team Hannover. Thanks to the awesomely playing duo Thomas Boehme and Jan Haller Wetzlar came through 100:59 (25:12/49:26/76:44) in the capital of Lower Saxony and celebrated their second “100” of the season.
“Offensively this has been a great day.” said Nicolai Zeltinger happily after the game, and did not want to let the win be diminished by organisational issues in the defence. “It was essential for the game to get this well into the game and take all hope of the opposition that they might be able to take advantage of our personnel situation.” Zeltinger was hinting at the fact, that not only the two US-Americans Serio and Paye as well as Thomas Gundert were missing, but also David Amend and Christopher Huber had to cancel short-notice.
But Huber’s U23-team mate Thomas Boehme tried to more than make up for it with a great performance, his sixth point within 3:18 minutes leading to the 10:0-start. In the end the 22-year-old had scored 36 points for his team. A big factor for the great start was mainly the dominant Middle Hesse defence, showing the opposition their limits early on. The team defended their early buffer-zone, even though the opposition got better into the game soon. But RSV pushed the scoreboard further up via 33:14 (13th min) towards 43:18 (16th min), not leaving much room for recovery for Hannover.
After changeover it was then time for Jan Haller. The RSV player from Hannover presented himself just as well as Boehme, scored a high percentage and got five rebounds. He added points 9 and ten to the 9:2-run that lead to the 62:34 (25th min). In the end Haller had scored 21 points with a 66 per cent hit ratio in front of his whole family.
But also RSV’s two centres Joe Bestwick (23 points, six rebounds) and Felix Schell (12 points and 85 per cent hit ratio) as well as a solid defensive performance by national player Annabel Breuer got the score up to 85:54 five minutes before half-time. But the guests were not contented yet, and in the last 4:08 minutes, when there was no thinking of 100 points at 90:58, the high pace of the game led within two minutes to 100:59 (38th min) and stayed that way for the rest of the game.
“This game just was great fun, we worked relaxed and concentrated and are now looking forward to the last game of the season at home and the upcoming playoffs.” RSV-coach Nicolai Zeltinger was happy about the outcome of the game. The playoffs will be against Goldmann Dolphins Trier, which will be held in a “best-of-three” semi-final. The Dolphins got the fourth and last ticket for the playoffs by beating Roller Bulls St Vith 82:66. The other semi-final will be between RSC-Rollis Zwickau and RSB Team Thueringen, who lost this weekend against their playoff-opposition 65:75.