Germany - VBL 1. Bundesliga 2018/2019

    Statistics of Stuttgart vs. Wiesbaden are rather one-sided like the match, with the sole exception of reception, in which Wiesbaden was a little better, and of course Wiesbaden served extremely aggressive against Stuttgart as always. But it didn't help them too much: attack rate of Stuttgart was clearly better 43% to 36%, block kills 15:3 (!), also more errors by Wiesbaden (14 to 18). Altogether the pressure from Stuttgart was too high for Wiesbaden today, so they couldn't do anything. It was a much better match by Stuttgart as seen last, the week of rest and careful preperation already paid off, despite there is still the possibility of improvement.

    I don't share your view, Matthias, and you know this, but we don't need to discuss it any longer, because the clash of Stuttgart and Schwerin in the final series seems to be sure. So we can just wait to clarify this by the teams themselves.

    Finally the player rankings of regular season were updated, so here are the best players after regular season:


    Best scorer:

    1 Marta Drpa 463

    2 Kimberly Drewniok 314

    3 Krystal Rivers 296

    4 Canace Finley 266

    5 Lina Alsmeier 257

    6 Tereza Patockova 253

    7 Maria Segura 252

    8 McKenzie Adams 245

    9 Lena Große Scharmann 231

    10 Sindy Lenz 226

    ...

    19 Ivana Mrdak 205 - best scorer of MBs


    Best server (total aces):

    1 Jennifer Geerties 37

    2 Kimberly Drewniok 36

    2 Marta Drpa 36

    2 Laura Künzler 36

    5 Maria Segura 34

    6 Mareike Hindriksen 33

    6 Tereza Patockova 33

    8 Jana Franziska Poll 31

    9 Anne Hölzig 30

    10 Lexi Dannemiller 29

    10 Canace Finley 29


    Best spiker MB (at least 150 attempts):

    1 Ivana Mrdak 58,3%

    2 Sasa Planinsec 57,6%

    3 Paige Tapp 54,2%

    4 McKenzie Jacobson 48,6%

    5 Molly McCage 47,5%

    6 Juliane Langgemach 46,5%

    7 Krista DeGeest 46%

    8 Laura Pihlajamäki 45,7%

    9 Micheli Tomazela 44,7%

    10 Kaz Brown 44,6%


    Best spiker OH/OPP (at least 200 attempts):

    1 Krystal Rivers 50,7%

    2 Kimberly Drewniok 46,4%

    3 Greta Szakmary 43,9%

    4 McKenzie Adams 43,4%

    5 Jennifer Geerties 43,4%

    6 Channon Thompson 42,9%

    7 Deborah van Daelen 42,7%

    8 Jodie Guilliams 42,3%

    9 Liza Kastrup 41,9%

    10 Nikola Radosova 41,3%


    Best blocker (total blocks):

    1 Nia Grant 58

    2 Wivian Gadelha 57

    3 Kaz Brown 50

    3 Krista DeGeest 50

    5 McKenzie Jacobson 49

    6 Molly McCage 44

    7 Lisa Gründing 43

    7 Ivana Mrdak 43

    7 Sasa Planinsec 43

    7 Leonie Schwertmann 43

    7 Celin Stöhr 43


    Best receiver (% positive, at least 200 attempts):

    1 Kirsten Knip 56,7%

    2 Lisa Thomsen 50,9%

    3 Claudia Steger 50,7%

    4 Karolina Bednarova 50,7%

    5 Jennifer Geerties 49,8%

    6 Rene Sain 49,7%

    7 Greta Szakmary 47,5%

    8 Anna Pogany 47,2%

    9 Roosa Koskelo 47,1%

    10 Lisa Stock 46,2%

    Tanja Großer one more year in Wiesbaden.


    Sophie Dreblow one more year in Straubing and Lisa Izquierdo even two more years. Danica Markovic can't play anymore due to back problems. Celin Stöhr got invited to NT training.


    Giannis Athanasopoulos besides coaching Stuttgart has also been appointed head coach of CZE NT.

    Despite there is no official announcement yet, Hans-Peter Jung from VBL was rather clear, that the very same 11 professional teams will play first league next season as this season - without VCO Berlin, which will go to second league North because of too many too young players than and of course as expected, no team from the both second leagues was applying for first league too. So we will now obviously miss one team and only in perspective there seem to be one or two teams not eligible by performance, which are interested to get a first league license via wildcard in one or two years.

    Today

    19.30 Aachen - Dresden (sporttotal.tv)

    19.30 Münster - Schwerin (sporttotal.tv)

    20.00 Wiesbaden - Stuttgart (Sport1)


    Tomorrow

    19.00 Vilsbiburg - Potsdam (sporttotal.tv)


    I expect Schwerin and Stuttgart to walk through to the semifinal without too much trouble today and Dresden to force a 3rd match against Aachen. In Vilsbiburg-Potsdam anything can happen.

    Dresden barely survived in Maaseik against Aachen today, they won only 14:16 in tie-break. So this is not decided, despite they have the nominal home advantage, but the first match at home they lost...


    Schwerin with big trouble in first two sets, but could safely win in five at the end and proceeded to the semis like Stuttgart, the latter faced massive resistence by typically fanatic playing Wiesbaden, but could win in three mostly close sets.

    Münster - Schwerin 2:3 (25:22 25:21 18:25 16:25 11:15)

    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2018-19/Women/2504.pdf

    MVP: Lisa Thomsen / Denise Hanke


    Aachen - Dresden 2:3 (25:16 22:25 26:28 25:23 14:16)

    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2018-19/Women/2507.pdf

    MVP: Jodie Guilliams / Camilla Weitzel


    Wiesbaden - Stuttgart 0:3 (29:31 21:25 24:26)

    http://live.volleyball-bundesliga.de/2018-19/Women/2501.pdf

    MVP: Jennifer Hamson / Krystal Rivers


    It's good to see that Münster and Wiesbaden put up a better fight today :thumbup: And nice to see Camilla Weitzel with such a good performance!


    I predict that Dresden will win 3:0 on Saturday (unless Waibl decides to start with Benson again). Aachen had their chance today and didn't use it, and that's how things usually go in the playoffs: in the long run, the stronger team is going to win, and there is a reason why Dresden was 3rd after regular season and Aachen 6th. Though honestly, I wouldn't be sad at all if I was wrong in this specific case :whistle:

    I read the report from Aachen vs. Dresden and the end of the fourth set and begin of tie-break fully revealed the tremendous pressure, which is felt by Dresdens players: both Maria Segura and Katharina Schwabe received a red card (!) at begin of the tie-break therefore, so Dresden had a non-playing handicap of 2:0 for Aachen than. If Aachen can maintain a minimum resistence against Dresden (i.e. winning at least one of the first two sets) at the weekend, anything can happen in Dresdens Margon hall, I think.

    Potsdam won by small margin 15:17 the tie-break in Vilsbiburg and came therefore through to the semis for the first time too. So we now wait for the last team to qualify at the weekend, there are two possible outcomes and pairings:


    1. Dresden wins, than the semis would be Stuttgart vs. Potsdam and Schwerin vs. Dresden

    2. Aachen wins, than the semis would be Stuttgart vs. Aachen and Schwerin vs. Potsdam


    because differently as many other leagues in VBL the teams are rearranged in case of an upset to fit to the order of the league round, not as drawn originally to the quarters.

    3rd and decisive match Dresden - Aachen today 16.10 on Sport1.


    Some transfer news: Wiesbaden fired head coach Dirk Groß after renewing his contract for two more seasons just a few weeks ago. Erfurt won't renew the contract of Jonas Kronseder. Münster keeps Luisa Keller for two more years, Juliet Lohuis will leave.

    As expected Dresden will start with Petter as libero instead of Benson. Funnily, in the pre match interview Alex Waibl said that throughout regular season Benson was solid in reception :D I just had a look at the stats and among the starting liberos of all 1st league teams only Carly Kan from Erfurt and Paula Morgenroth from VCO have weaker reception stats than Benson :aww:

    So my 3:0 prediction already turns out to be wrong and I'm happy about it!

    Petter receives much better than Benson, but the consequence is that Aachen distributes their serves more and everyone gets to show their reception weaknesses now :roll: Dresden's OHs are so weak. Segura was really good during most of regular season and now she's invisible, and I don't understand why Stigrot gets so little time on court. Sure, her passing is even worse than everyone else's, but at least she would score some more probably.

    Weitzel is doing great so far though :obey: