63:41-win at home against Koeln 99ers
Defensively strong but lacking in the offence, this is how title-defendants RSV Lahn-Dill started into the season 2014/2015. Still, after forty minutes the score was very clear, and the Wetzlar team was able to celebrate a good win in front of around 900 spectators at August-Bebel-Sporthalle Wetzlar.
“We had set our focus on new defence-strategies; it was expectable that we wouldn’t be as strong in the offence yet.” Was head-coach Nicolai Zeltinger’s conclusion of what has been seen on court this Saturday night. The 99ers were struggling against the aggressive and quick defence of their opposition, whilst RSV’s passing in the offence was lacking its usual accuracy, and their hit-rate only came to a meagre 39 percent.
So it happened, that the Wetzlar Rollis, after a good start (9:4, 4th min), were behind 9:10 in the sixth minute after two successful shots by Marina Mohnen. But the team woke up in the second quarter, and the hosting team played quick and effectively, above all strong playing Joe Bestwick, who shot well in action as well as from the free-throw line. (34:17, 19th min)
It continued the same way after the change-over, but after a quickly reached 40:20 (21st min) the Middle Hesse team slowed down, which helped the 99ers and especially their key-player Paul Toes to get closer again to 42:27 within a few minutes. Only the last quarter became more exciting again, even though the points-difference did not change a lot anymore. Thomas Boehme became top-scorer of the game (17 points) with a three in the 39th minute, leading to 61:38. The fans took this as a sign to get off their seats to give their traditional standing ovations during the last minute of the game, knowing that there was still a lot of room for improvement for their team. “Thankfully we have a couple of months until the play-offs to work on our appearance” said assistant-coach Ralf Neumann after the win with a smirk on his face, still happy about the deserved outcome of the game.
RSB Team Thueringen on the other hand seemed to have had a launch failure, despite being seen as RSV’s strongest competition within the league, when they lost 64:65 against Mainhatten Skywheelers. Zwickau, Trier and Hamburg won their first games though, latter team hosting RSV Lahn-Dill next weekend.
Lahn-Dill: Thomas Boehme (17/1 Dreier), Michael Paye (13), Joe Bestwick (12), Steve Serio (10), Dirk Koehler (7), Bjoern Lohmann (2), Marco Zwerger (2), Jan Haller, Felix Schell, Annabel Breuer.
Cologne: Paul Toes (13), Benjamin Lenatz (8), Marina Mohnen (8), Lars Bergenthal (5), Frank de Goede (4), Dominik Zielke (2), Edwin Schalkx (1), Gabriel Kasapoglu, Patrick Richter.