Hard-fought 71:64 success over RSC-Rollis Zwickau
At 21:39 captain Michael Paye held up the new Championship trophy in the air and brought August-Bebel-Halle, filled with 1.600 excited visitors, to the boil. Before this scene the old and new German Champions conquered their old rivals RSC-Rollis Zwickau in 40 enthralling minutes, who proved to be worthy opponents in the second game of this best-of-three series and who demanded everything from the hosting team.
"It was an incredibly straining game and such an immense pressure bearing down on us in the last couple of days, as of course everyone expected nothing less than the title. But Zwickau are worthy opponents and we knew how hard this would be" RSV coach Nicolai Zeltinger was as happy as he was relieved after the 31st win in 31 games. And so the scenes immediately after the final siren in front a couple of prominent onlookers such as Hesse’s opposition leader Thorsten Schäfer – Gümbel and Dragoslav Stepanovic, were all the more emotional . The 65 -year-old cult trainer did not hesitate to congratulate each player personally after the game.
Before, him and the crowd witnessed an exciting and diverse game, in which the Saxons started off with a surprising starting five, a tactical variation that ended 14:4 (5th min) for RSC after a three-point-play for Steve Serio. But RSC-coach Sinclair Thomas reacted by putting Junior-World-Champion Kai Moeller and centre Adam Erben on court, which put RSV in a precarious situation.
Especially in the second quarter the guests displayed a defence close to perfection, putting RSV in bad positions again and again. This led to a huge drop in RSV’s hit-ratio between minute 7 and 16, increasing their insecurity. Already at the end of the first quarter Zwickau had gotten closer to 18:22, before British European Champion Ghazian Choudhry seemed to hit everything from everywhere at the start of the second quarter. 16 points by him and another twelve by Czech Erben pushed the scoreboard to 27:38 seconds before half-time, changed only slightly by Joe Bestwick’s and Thomas Boehme’s free-throws to 30:40.
Coaches Nicolai Zeltinger and Ralf Neumann sat together with captain Michael Paye for a good while to talk tactics, before they decided on how to continue. A plan that worked once again, as RSV Lahn-Dill took over after half-time. Whilst Dirk Koehler showed the audience and opposition the best half of his season in the offence, RSC were not able to get through their opposition for six whole minutes.
Point by point RSV got closer to their guests from Zwickau, before Dirk Koehler got the points to tie 44:44 as well as get the points to overtake to 47:44 in the 29th minute, turning August-Bebel-Sporthalle into a madhouse. The German Champions kept building up their lead via 55:48 (32nd min) by Steve Serio and 69:60 (38th min) by Thomas Boehme, despite a three by Choudhry, that got RSC closer again to 60:58 (35th min) But RSV did not let anybody put them over a barrel and won their second game against Zwickau one week after the 67:53 away-success.
The game was followed by emotional and lively scenes, before vice president Werner Otto (Wachtberg), RBBL-manager Tanja Feddersen (Munich) and Wetzlar’s mayor Manfred Wagner awarded the now eleven-fold German Champions with their new title. “It is absolutely great and awesome to be back with the team and being able to be part of this again.” Thomas Gundert, who has been out for four month due to medical reasons, was able to give vent to his happy feelings, taking the words out of the whole team’s mouths.
Now, after the end of the national season and the ninth double for the Wetzlar team, both RSV and RSC-Rollis Zwickau are preparing for the IWBF Champions League in Madrid.