62:39 win against promoted team FCK Rolling Devils
Leaders of the table RSV Lahn-Dill have confirmed their spot with their 62:39 (20:8/30:19/42:27) win, without shining though. The very mixed performance in Kaiserslautern was mainly due to a less than ideal week of training in the run up to the weekend. One bright spot though was newbie Nico Dreimueller, who wasn’t only wearing the Wetzlar vest, but also had his first points for his team.
„Of course we didn’t have a great week with this many players being ill, we cannot use this fact as an excuse for a poor hit ratio this Saturday” says RSV-coach Nicolai Zeltinger after the game. The 42-year-old had to see the opposition lead 8:7 in the fifth minute, before his squad had adapted to their unusual starting line-up. Both low-pointers, Bjoern Lohmann and Christopher Huber were under the weather, whilst Annabel Breuer had to miss the game completely. So it took a couple of minutes until the team had found their balance, and before the team could straighten the score up with a 13:0-run, finishing the first quarter 20:8.
But the Rolling Devils were able to keep the game open until the break, despite not having the best day either. That way the game kept going backwards and forwards without either team being able to get a huge advantage on the other one. “We had to try a lot of different line-ups in this phase of the game, which clearly did not help the flow of the game.” describes Nicolai Zeltinger the second quarter, in which Nico Dreimueller came on court for the first time in the 15th minute. A bit insecure to start with, the 16-year-old soon gained more confidence and even scored for his first points just before half-time, leading to 30:18.
The Wetzlar team had their strongest phase after change-over, when they first managed to pull off to 36:19 (23rd min) and were then able to keep this advance up for the rest of the quarter. But as quickly as this good level of playing had come, as quickly it went again. Only when the points-difference had shrunk to 54:38 (38th min), the team pushed themselves again and after successful shots by Thomas Boehme, David Amend and Steve Serio the final score of 62:39 was reached. RSV’s best player of the evening was Steve Serio, whilst for the Kaiserslautern especially Swiss national player Phillip Haefeli did not only catch attention due to his 14 points. Former Wetzlar player Mark Beissert was in the starting five for his team and scored 5 points. “We have to get back to our usual rhythm this week, so that we will be able to stand our ground against top team RSB Thueringen. There lies a lot of work ahead of us this week.”
Kaiserslautern: Philipp Häfeli (14), Janic Binda (8), Taz Capasso (6), Mark Beissert (5), Matthias Heimbach (4), Serdar Antac (2), Peter Dries, Paul Nikolaus, Viktor Hammerschmidt (n.e.).
Lahn-Dill: Steve Serio (22), Thomas Böhme (13), Michael Paye (8), Joe Bestwick (5), Jan Haller (4), Felix Schell (4), David Amend (2), Nico Dreimüller (2), Dirk Köhler (2), Christopher Huber, Björn Lohmann, Marco Zwerger.