Brilliant Debut in the Champions League for SVG LÜNEBURG

What a debut in the Champions League: With a 3:0 (26:24, 25:20, 25:15) home win in front of 1856 euphoric fans in the LKH Arena against VK Jihostroj Ceske Budejovice from the Czech Republic, SVG Lüneburg has registered itself among the top 20 volleyball teams in Europe. The first three points in Pool D of the premier class were booked after 87 minutes.

The 1st set was still completely even. The guests from Budweis had the better start (5:7, 7:10), and middle blocker Sam Taylor-Parks in particular was difficult to stop in this phase. But then the tide turned, starting with an ace by Yann Böhme to make it 10:11. 16:15 by Matthew Knigge gave the home side its first lead, but Ceske stayed in the game because Ignacio Luengas and Stijn van Schie were successful with their attacks. For SVG, Jesse Elser and Böhme (4 each) were best at finding the gaps. The visitors fended off the first set point, but then then, of all people, setter Eduardo Carisio made a technical error that ended the set.

Supported by a secure reception around libero Gage Worsley, who could be found everywhere, the home side improved in the second period and now had their outstanding man in outside attacker Erik Röhrs who was hardly to be stopped in his drive (6 out of 7 attacks). The match only threatened to tip in the middle of the set when Luengas produced a series of serves, equalized at 14:14 and followed it up with an ace. However, SVG soon had everything under control again (17:15) and extended the lead to 25:20 after a missed ball by Luengas. Set 3 was then a clear-cut affair. The hosts were now able to do almost everything and finally won the long rallies. They went from 6:3 to 11:7, 16:10 and 20:12 at the start of the crunch time - until Budejovice made a foot fault in attack at 24:15 for SVG and so closed out the match itself. The fans' party could begin.

SVG head coach Stefan Hübner was also beaming: "A lot of the things I had hoped for worked out. We served very well, very powerfully and hardly made any mistakes. The block was good and in defense we were very disciplined. But the first set was very close - if it goes the other way ends.... Winning that one did us a lot of good, it calmed us down." The other two sets then became clearer and clearer, the guests from Budweis seemed increasingly despondent against SVG's good blocking and extremely attentive court defense, especially by libero Gage Worsley. And a lot was achieved in attack, with setter Max Elgert distributing the balls variably.

Most of the points were scored by Erik Röhrs (12), who was also Man of the Match, Yann Böhme (11) and Blake Leeson (10). They were joined by the visitors outside attackers Ignacio Luengas (13) and Stijn van Schie (11) came closest to them.