Volleyball Lotto Volley League Achel – Haasrode Leuven 3-2
The strong Dane Dahl van Achel often got past the Leuven block. — © Serge Minten
Haasrode Leuven has not been able to confirm all the good things against Roeselare. Against Achel it still fought back from a 2-0 deficit, but in the tiebreak the people of Leuven were broken by too many unnecessary mistakes and there was no more than a point in it.
Kenny Hennes
The team from Leuven again took no risks with Simon Peeters. He is recovering from an old thigh injury. That is why Lennert Beelaert again got a base place on the corner. And that position was heavily applied by both teams during the initial phase.
Achel easily found his way to the Australian Staples and the Dane Dahl, while VHL captain Hendrik Tuerlinckx was immediately involved. It went on for a long time, until the same Staples had had enough and created the first and decisive gap at 11-9 and 13-10. “That was entirely Achel’s credit, because it caused a lot of storage pressure. Even though the difference was very small, there was little to argue about in their first set thanks to, among other things, a scorching start from Dahl”, said coach Kris Eyckmans, who saw his team take the lead in set two.
Partly thanks to an offensively excellent De Paepe (4 out of 4), the team from Leuven built up a lead step by step. At 16-19, Haasrode Leuven seemed to be on its way to balance the score, but suddenly the engine sputtered and Achel was able to take advantage.
No grip on Dahl
Eyckmans: “Once again we couldn’t get a grip on Dahl. In addition, we need to rethink the connection with our position four (front left, ed.) in order to score a little easier there. Or is that the reason why I replaced Berre Peters with Simon Peeters? Look, our three corner players were just very close to each other in terms of level. But the fact that we still handed over the second set was a sour turning point in the match.”
However, the team from Leuven started to play better under the impulse of substitute Simon Peeters. In both set three and set four, they controlled the game and steadily expanded their lead with relatively easy set wins (19-25 and 14-25) as a result. From 2-0 to 2-2, the mental advantage seemed for the tiebreak so to sit with Tuerlinckx and co, but that turned out differently.
“Past experience tells us that such a tiebreak can go either way. Moreover, we just played our weakest set of the match with too many unnecessary errors, including four misses. Then you can already feel the storm, of course. The fact that Achel wins proves once again that many teams are evenly matched. Well, it’s just a pity, because every point we leave now takes us less quickly to the certainty of participation in the play-offs with six”, concludes the coach.