ältere...

Pilsen 2009

Details

Erstellt am Freitag, 13. März 2009 15:35

Zuletzt aktualisiert am Samstag, 19. Mai 2012 08:10

Weekend 7-8^th March 2009:

A team from Hamburg made the long trek to the Czech Republic to play in the mixed indoor tournament in Pilsen. Despite leaving at 16.30 on Friday night, the long ride (some unfortunate traffic and Steven getting us a bit lost) meant that we didn’t reach our destination till about 1.30am, and most of us weren’t in bed till well after 2am. This was pretty tough start to the weekend, given all the alarms in the sleeping hall went off at 7am. Despite this lack of sleep we piled back into the van and warmed up for our first match.

The first game was a hard fought draw against Graz A-team (11-11) this was a good result especially as we had forgotten how to play, due to our lack of sleep, and let them score the first 3 points unanswered. The second game indicated the beginning of a trend of slow starts, which allowed Prague 7 a 3 point lead also, unfortunately we were not able to claw our way back into this game as Prague 7 we’re a very well drilled team, so we lost 8-9. Our luck began to change in the third game where we finally won. Yellow fever 2 were a very young team and although they fought hard to keep up, the experienced heads on the Fischbees carried the team through with a good win 12-7. The team's good form carried through to next game where we left 3SB almost standing still with a very good start. Excellent defence caused turn over after turn over and our first 5 passes all turned into points; -in fact, in no time at all the score was 7-0, and as a result our concentration was not so good for the rest of the game and we allowed 3SB to score several easy points. However, the victory was always comfortably in hand (16-7). The last pool game was against Peace Egg, and was one we need to win to advance to the top pool in the second day, another good start saw the team up early, but Peace egg came back to tie the scores about half way through the game. Good pressure and some bad errors by us let them get ahead and although we fought hard to get back too the game, too many unforced mistakes ended up costing us the game, 9-11. The final game on Saturday was a cross over game against one of the Pool A teams, Saxy divers. There was a bit of a lack of communication which saw most of our team sitting on the side lines chatting away while Saxy divers warmed up and waiting of an opposition. The result of this was a very slow start by the team, and at one stage we trailed by 3. A bit of yelling and an increase in concentration however saw their lead disappear. Our momentum carried through the rest of the game and by the end, the result was quite comfortable (13-7).

Dinner consisted mostly of large portions of meat, with beer and Becherovka. The party was a rather quiet affair, although watching the games we’d played during the day on the big screen while drinking 75 cent beers, was a good way to unwind. At about 2am some of us head back to our hotel, with the rest of the team returning to the sleeping hall a little later.

Sunday morning arrived far too quickly, but a late start to the day saw us line up against Spirit on Lemon for the first game of the day. The now notorious slow start affected us again, however, constant pressure through out, and some excellent work by the girls, saw us gain what turned into a relatively comfortable win, 12-8. The next game was a rematch against Prague 7, the only game were we had been out played, the previous day. A different Hamburg team showed up and took control of the game early. Opening up a handy 3 point lead when we never gave up, again lead by the girls who had turned into scoring machines, the control and calm heads extended the lead to 6 at one point, final score 11-7, a great improvement on the previous day's performance. The final game was against the Prague Devils, unfortunately my memory is completely blank as to what happened during this game, but I am reliably informed that we lost and finished the tournament in 10^th place, from 24 teams.

Special mention must go to the girls who scored the lions' share of the points reinforcing the notion that a good mixed team runs on the legs of its women, well done ladies we wouldn’t have done nearly so well without your consistent performances through the weekend. The team that went to Pilsen were: Tommy, Thomas, Judith, Steven, Astrid, Andrea, Mathis, Craig and Falk