New Website

As you all have probably gathered, Matt is no longer in Denmark. So I have a new blog address, but this time decided to get really creative with the name. So may I present for your reading pleasure...

http://mattinukraine.blogspot.com

The new site still has all the old posts, so you just need to update your bookmarks (if I've been so lucky) to follow me in Ukraine. Thanks for reading.

Matt

Kiev

Main square

Kiev

Pechersk Lavra Monastery

Nezalezhnist Training Tournament

Over the weekend we hosted a tournament that coincides with Ukrainian Independence Day. We ended up winning the tournament, and our libero and outside hitter picked up best libero and best player awards, respectively.

I didn't play that much, but I knew I wouldn't going in because I hadn't trained much with the team. I played about half the time in the first match, and was part of some double switches in the last two matches, as well as making some appearances as a serving specialist. I had an ace in each match and made some good plays but I'm clearly still getting back into volleyball mode.

Our first match was against the youth team of Lokomotiv Belogorie, who's senior team is one of the best in Russia and in Europe. They were a good team, but young, and it wasn't much of a challenge for us. The set scores were 25-18, 25-17, and 25-18. I honestly expected a bit more from them, though I would put their level at about the same as a top Under-17's or Under 18's team from the States.

The second match was against VC Favorit, a club that just came up to the Superleague from the 2nd Division Ukraine. They were decent, and it was interesting for me to see what kind of level the rest of the league has. They were all big, and pretty solid all around, though they didn't have much depth on their bench. We made a lot of errors in the second set and lost it pretty badly, but rebounded to win 3-1. The set scores were 25-22, 19-25; 25-18, and 25-16.

The last match was against VC Metallurg, who was the champion of Belarus last year and is playing in the Challenge Cup. They were a really good team, and it was a close match the whole way through. We came out quick and won the first two sets without much difficulty, but Metallurg rallied and won the third and fourth to force a final set. It was 7-8 at the switch, and I went in to serve for our middleblocker when we were down 8-11. We got one point back off my serve, then they sided out to go up 9-12. We were out of subs, so I changed with the libero and went back to the bench. We ended up getting a couple points back again (including two side outs when they had match ball) and suddenly it was 16-16 and I had to go back in the front row to play "middle." We switched so that the opposite was blocking middle and I went to my normal place in position 2. They set their opposite and we got a dig and a kill from the outside to go up 17-16 and get our first match ball. They set the outside on the next play and I got a touch and we picked it up to get another counterattack and win the match. It ended up being a little ugly, but we got the win, and I was able to make my middle debut in Ukraine, which was exciting.

After the match we were treated to some cheerleader dancing, as well as some traditional Ukrainian folk song and dance numbers by some kids, all of which was set to a laser light show, which was kinda funny. I've been looking for pictures or video of the match, but it's not up on our site yet, and I don't think the newspapers were covering the matches, but if I find anything I'll be sure to post it.

Ukraine

After two days of training the team here in Klagenfurt ended up signing another setter instead of me. So it goes. However, the experience here was good, and I just got word of a team in Ukraine that is looking for a setter. So tomorrow I'm taking a train to Vienna and then flying into Kiev.

The club is called VC Impexagro Sport Cherkasy and is in Cherkasy, about 150 km south of Kiev. They play in the top division in Ukraine and finished 5th last year. There is apparently a tournament starting on Tuesday, and they want me to play with them for that. I've never been to Ukraine and I don't know anything about the Cyrillic alphabet, so this will definitely be an interesting experience, but I'm looking forward to playing some good volleyball.

Back in Denmark

After a great summer back in California, and nice little sending off with the Six-Man, I'm back in Denmark. (If you want to know why I'm wearing a dress, you've obviously never been to Six-Man.)

I won't be here long, however, as I'm heading off to Klagenfurt, Austria for a tryout. The team, VBK Wörther-See-Löwen Klagenfurt, is in 1. Bundesliga, which is the top division in Austria, and they finished 5th last year, one spot out of a European Cup.

I leave Tuesday morning, fly into Venice, then catch a train to Klagenfurt, which is a little less than four hours away. I'll arrive in the evening, and likely have my first training Wednesday. I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes.

Photos from the Final

Photevent.dk

Team of the Year

The voting for team of the year ended Sunday, so I thought I'd offer my predictions on who I think will pick up the awards and why.

Outside Hitter - Jonas Napier and Niels Knudsen
Napier passes half the court even in three man serve reception, and gets kills when everyone in the gym knows the ball is going to him. Niels has had a great season for us as well, being a very good passer and attacker on the outside.
Honorable Mention: Tobias Nielsen

Middle Blockers - Mikkel Vestergaard and Flemming Olufsen
Having Mikkel playing again this year has been great for us, and the one-two combination of him and Flemming has carried us at times. The only thing that limits them is our ability to get them the ball.
Honorable Mention: Matthew Lebourdias and Per Eggers

Opposite - Shaun Powell
Easily the best attacker in the Elitedivision, he has the ability to hit over any block from the front or back row.
Honorable Mention: Kasper Munk

Setter - Jordan Hove
Another easy choice. He makes Marienlyst run, and has an excellent ability to turn bad passes into a fast, accurate offense.
Honorable Mention: Sebastian Mikelsons

Libero - BT Knudsen
He made some amazing digs in the cup final, and every time I see him play he comes up with at least one incredible defense ball.
Honorable Mention: Jonas Søndergaard

Newcomer of the Year - Kasper Munk
Served and attacked great against us, and was a big part of Holte's success this year.
Honorable Mention: Simon Bitsch

Player of the Year - Jordan Hove
This is a close call between him and Napier, but if you look at wins and losses, Hove has to take it. He's gotten his team to the finals, and already has two cup wins under his belt. It's difficult for a setter to take over a match the way that an outside hitter can, but Hove still manages to with his serving and defense.

Final #1

The first final was Wednesday night, and it ended up being a disappointing one for us as we lost to Marienlyst 3-1. The set scores were 22-25, 16-25, 25-14, and 21-25.

In both the first and fourth sets we had leads of a few points but couldn't do anything with it, and both the second and third sets were easy wins for Marienlyst and us, respectively. Both teams ended up finishing the match with different outside hitters; Steen came in for Tue and did a good job with his first significant playing time in the postseason, while for Marienlyst Peter Schøler came in for Jon Daze, who seemed to be having shoulder problems.

Our big issue was poor serve reception, which limited our ability to run the middles. Mikkel Søe got four or five points nearly every time he served, and we had trouble in some other rotations as well. We actually managed to win some good points in counterattack, but the high number of points we lost in sideout made those gains negligible.

We now go to Marienlyst in the same situation as last year, and we should expect the environment to be the same: a loud, sauna-like hall and a heavy dose of Powell in attack. We will obviously be looking for a different result this year, and if we sideout better we can send it to a third game.

TV2 Nord
Nordjyske Article
Nordjyske Pictures

Finals Bound!

After a dramatic and hard-fought game Saturday evening, we are headed to the finals for the second straight year. As much as things didn't go our way in the second semifinal Wednesday, they did on Saturday night, as we were able to win points at critical times and come back from big deficeits in the third and fourth sets. The set scores for the match were 25-22, 22-25, 23-25, and 22-25.

The second semifinal on Wednesday wasn't the greatest from our point of view, and we made a ton of service errors that took a lot of pressure off Gentofte. Napier absolutely went off in the first set, serving from 16-13 to finish off the set. He continued to be the offense for Gentofte for the rest of the match, getting plenty of kills from both the front and back row and leading Gentofte to a win.

Saturday night we knew we would have to stop him if we were going to have a chance of winning. We made some adjustments in our block and refocused our efforts on serving, and felt like we could slow him down enough to force other people to make some plays. The first and second sets were very similar; both teams traded sideouts and played tight throughout, with Gentofte taking the first and us taking the second.

The third set was nearly all Gentofte, and they opened up a lead of five or six points late in the set. We didn't get worried, and got three or four points each from Niels and me serving, which put us out in front and gave us control of the set. We sided out to finish the set and take a 2-1 set lead, putting us in firm control of the match.

Any control or momentum that we had was lost, however, when Gentofte came out and opened up a 9-1 lead in the next set. But as in the third, we sided out on the first ball each time and got at least one or two points off our own serve. We tied up the game around 14, and with that came the feeling that winning the set was inevitable. Gentofte looked rattled, and our service pressure ended up being too much for them. We recieved serve at 24-20 (from Napier, who strangely enough was always serving at the end of the sets Saturday night), and they got a couple points, but Thomas got the final kill to send us to the finals.

Thomas deserves some special mention because he came off the bench and played great for us, and was huge in the comebacks in the third and fourth sets. Another thing that made this win so big is that it was the first victory for Aalborg in Kildeskovshallen since 2005.

After Sunday night's other semifinal, we now know we will be playing Marienlyst, in what will be a rematch of last year's championship. The first match is Thursday 9 April at 16:00 in Aalborg.

Nordjyske Article
Pictures

Watch the Semifinal Live

Gentofte shows their matches live on the internet, so if you'd like to watch the second semifinal match live, follow the link below to download the software.

Gentofte TV Page

After you have downloaded and installed the program, start it up. Choose the 'sign up' option and register your username. The installation puts a shortcut on your desktop which will take you directly to Gentofte TV.

The match starts at 19:30 CET (10:30 am Pacific) on Wednesday 1 April.

First Semifinal vs Gentofte

The first semifinal was Sunday evening against Gentofte, and we were finally able to get our game back on track and play at a level that we were happy with. The result was a 3-0 win, with set scores 25-22, 26-24, and 25-19.

All the sets were close through the first 15 points or so, with both teams trading serve and the occasional counterattack point, but by 15 in each set we were able to pull ahead by a few points.

We missed at least seven or eight serves in the first set, which was frustrating, but we sided out well enough to limit the damage from that. However in the second set we put our serves in the court and continued siding out well, which got us into a good rhythm. At the end of the second we had a lead of 24-23 with a chance to sideout for the set. Niels got blocked to tie it up at 24 all, but we stayed calm and sided out and got a counterattack point to win.

In the third set Napier switched to opposite, but it was more of the same from us. We got some good serving from Niels and some key blocks from our middles to give us a solid 5 point lead midway through the set. We cruised from there and took the final frame easily.

It felt good for me to finally feel in sync with the hitters again, and I think this was a good team effort, where everybody did what they needed to do to help the team win. We had a good plan going in, plus the confidence of knowing that we've beaten Gentofte every time we've played at home for the last two years. It must be said, however, that we haven't won on their home court in as many years, though I think now is as good a time as any. We have last year's experience of winning semifinal games away from home, which can only help us, and with all the pressure on Gentofte, we will be able to play our game, which this year (as opposed to last season) seems to be better when we are more relaxed.

Pictures (Big thanks to Morten Smith for them!)
Nordjyske
TV2 Nord

The Last Four Matches

It's been a while (again) since I blogged, and we've had matches against Gentofte, Middelfart, Ikast, and one last weekend against Marienlyst. A lot has changed since the last time I wrote, when we were fighting with Gentofte for a second place spot. We lost our match against them and they are now in first, with Marienlyst second, and our loss to Middelfart the week after has knocked us down to fourth place.

The match against Gentofte was frustrating because we won the first set comfortably, then had several swings for set ball in the second set which we couldn't convert. Gentofte won both the second and third sets 27-25, though in the third we were behind and made a late run to challenge for the set, which turned out to not be enough.

The loss against Middelfart the week after was only our second home loss of the season. It was an ugly game and easy for Middelfart, as we lost by scores of 16-25, 18-25, and 17-25. We didn't have Jonas for that match, and Dimitar got a nasty cut on his had in warmups, so he had to come out because he was bleeding all over the court. Steen came in and played libero and did fine, but we were already out of it at that point. The loss put us behind Middelfart in the table, as we were level on points but with a lower set score.

The match again Ikast a week later was pretty up and down for us. We played decently in the sets we won, and held Ikast to 16 and 17 points, and only 7 in the deciding set. But the second and fourth sets were full of trouble in reception (as we were still without Jonas) and we made too many errors.

We had the next weekend off, then a trip to Odense to meet Marienlyst. We won the first set easily, thanks to a lot of attacking errors from Marienlyst and some decent serving by us. The second set was full of drama because the Marienlyst coach wrote the lineup wrong so that the middle blocker was following the setter in the rotation. The down ref told them to get in the correct position before the set started, but I don't think they realized that the lineup was written wrong. Eventually they got called for some rotation errors, and started complaining about the calls. The refs lost control at that point, and there really should have been some cards shown. The fact that we couldn't win that set was embarassing, considering we got several points from rotation errors, but we made plenty of errors to erase any advantage that might have given us. The fourth and final set went to Marienlyst as well, and ended up not being very close in the end.

The playoffs will be interesting this year because I don't think any team is playing particularly well. We've played the three other playoff teams within a month of each other, and no one really looked to be on top of their game. Gentofte relied on Jonas to carry them but didn't have much else going on, Middelfart came to our place and beat us in 3, but you never know which team will show up with them, Marienlyst looked unmotivated, and we've just lost to those three teams. With the last round of the season meaningless in terms of final position, I'm sure most teams are looking ahead to the semifinal matchups already, though how those will turn out is anyone's guess.

Games v Århus and Holte

The last couple weeks have been pretty rough on the team due to injuries and illness, and it's definitely shown in the last two matches. Both the Århus and Holte matches were very similar; both games had missing starters and a poor second set in each, but in both cases we were able to get the result we needed.

In the Århus match we were without Mikkel and Flemming, so "The Hammer" (Morten) got his first elitedivision start as a middle. The first, third, and fourth sets were comfortable and we adjusted to Århus tipping and lobbing the ball often. In the second set however, everything went to hell. Passing, attacking, and serving just went out the door and Århus won the set easily. The final scores for the match were 25-19, 16-25, 25-17, and 25-16.

We had a similar second set against Holte on Sunday. We started off the match with five hitting errors and were down by more than seven points midway through the set. Morten was switched in for me and towards the end of second set and we made a good run to challenge them for the win. The rest of the match belonged to us however, and we blocked really well, especially against Holte's outsides. We were missing Tue due to illness so Steen got the start at outside, and Mikkel and Flemming both played but were less than 100%. The set scores against Holte were 22-25, 25-22, 13-25, and 21-25.

As I mentioned before, in both cases we got the result, which was the most important thing, however having such a horrible set two times in a row gives us something to think about. It's the point in the season where it's easy to lose focus, but we can't afford to drop matches or even sets when the table is so tight. I think that was the case with Marienlyst this weekend, who may have had a bit of a hangover (though not literally) from winning the NCC. It's the second time that Middelfart has beaten them 3-0 this year, and those are the only two losses for Marienlyst this season.

Looking forward to the last third of the season and possible final results, Middelfart's win puts Holte four points out of a top four spot, and it looks like a stretch to see them making the playoffs this season, though of course anything is possible. The fight to avoid relegation may likely come down to the match on 21 February between Skovbakken and Ikast. And finally, we will have to win our match against Gentofte this weekend if we want any chance at second place, and home court advantage for the playoffs. It should be an exciting final third of the season, with some great games down the stretch.

Nordjyske - Århus Match
Nordjyske - Holte Match

Cup Final

I've been slow to write about the cup final, mainly because I had no idea what went wrong. I wanted to see if I could let it sit for a bit and then maybe something would come to me as to why we made such a poor showing. But it's been more than a week now, and after spending a day or two after the match thinking about it, and despite talking about it as a team at practice the following Monday and Tuesday, nothing has become any clearer.
There were just a lot of little things that went wrong, and they all happened at the same time. There were instances of miscommunication and lots of stupid mistakes that should have been eliminated within the first month of the season. Looking at the scores from the game, the 16, 17, and 20 points we scored weren't really indicative of how lopsided the match really was. We made runs of at least three or four points at the end of each set, and we could have easily been held to 11 in the first. Marienlyst was consistent throughout the match and didn't do much that was unexpected from our point of view. They passed well in reception and Hove was able to spread the ball around. We slowed Powell as much as is possible, but he (and the rest of the team) weren't called upon to do much in order to win. That's the way it goes sometimes, but what was so disappointing was to do it in such an important match. Congratulations to Marienlyst for their second cup in as many years.

TV2 Nord Video
TV2 Fyn Video
DR Video
Nordjyske Pictures
Photoevent.dk Pictures

Cup Final Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big cup final, and we are meeting Marienlyst for the fourth time this season. Last week's match against them was unspectacular for both teams, and it really seemed like both sides were pretty flat, almost as though we didn't want to celebrate things too much, for fear of not being excited enough when we met again a week later. That certainly won't be the case Sunday, and I know everyone is looking forward to this match. We've got a bus of supporters coming down with us, and around 2,000 spectators are expected. Those of you who can't make it to the game can follow the live-score online here. The match starts at 15:30 (6:30 am Pacific).

Here's some more information about the game:

Cup History:
Aalborg HIK: Champion in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003; Runner up in 2002
Marienlyst: Champion in 2004 and 2007

Elitedivision Records:
Marienlyst: 11-1 (1st)
Aalborg HIK: 7-4 (3rd)

Head to head matchup this season:
Marienlyst leads 3-0

Aalborg's Route to the Final:
1/8 Final: Forfeit win against Amager
1/4 Final: Holte 0 - 3 Aalborg HIK
Semifinal: Aalborg HIK 3 - 0 Middelfart

Marienlyst's Route to the Final
1/8 Final: Korsør-Slagelse 1 - 3 Marienlyst
1/4 Final: Hvidovre 0 - 3 Marienlyst
Semifinal: Gentofte 0 - 3 Marienlyst

Quotes:
Marienlyst coach Mikkel Hauge: "They will win if we don't play our best. The difference [between the teams] is not that great. They are talking a lot about Shaun Powell as 'the man' we can always set as a last resort."

Aalborg HIK assistant coach Wagner Foldberg: "Winning the cup final first of all demands that we find the right level of excitement. We are going need more 'wildness' and have to be ready from the first serve. It won't work if we, as in Saturday's game, need a set to find out it's for real."

Nordjyske Article

http://www.nordjyske.dk/sport/forside.aspx?ctrl=10&data=5%2c3051022%2c5%2c4

TV2 Nord from the Marienlyst Match

http://www.tv2nord.dk/default.asp?PageID=4&ProgrammeDate=18-01-2009&ProgrammeID=2&ProgrammePartID=161920