Season summary TVST Johann Damen 1
After successfully placing first at the end of last year and advancing to the 3rd League all of us knew there would be tasks to do. Even though we had a few ambitious people in the team who set winning our new league as the goal for the year, the more experienced in our team helped us to set a more realistic goal for the upcoming year, namely keep our position in the 3rd League.
After hearing from some of the players of the team who had played in the third division before, we knew to achieve the goal, all of us needs to be stronger, faster and smarter.
So immediately there were actions taken, such as doing strength trainings outside of training time (and tracking it in a Team application), signing up for several tournaments, looking for additional players (to make sure we will always have enough even with sickness or injuries) and last but not least we started to train focusing on our positions first and foremost.
The team fully fired up dived into trainings and practices, while our eagle-eyed, statistic queen coach [OF1] Marianne, was watching us, and our opponents (in tournaments and games), to come up with the best tactics in order to keep us in our division.
We practiced different systems at tournaments and as well as on the first few matches, to keep our play versatile and confuse the opponents (sometimes ourselves as well).
We welcomed 3 new players in three different positions with whom we started to train together and get to know each other better and better. However, even this slight change in the team resulted in some insecurities and led to us being still motivated to show our best individually. .
We kept our fire at the beginning of the season, fought for all points and sets and had a good start. Each player had improved a lot thanks to the trainings and practices to strengthen the weaknesses and experimenting with new positions (Jeanine and Aline have been changing to several different positions, Jasmine got to try out both the outside hitter as well as the dia positions and even Océane also had to jump in for Block).
Then came our last match before the Christmas holidays, where something noticeably changed with the team. After losing the first two sets against Novartis, the team was devastated. However, we did not come here to lose. The team members looked at each other and with new heart and strength, we went back to the field. Everyone remaining on the bench kept cheering as one man to the fighters on the field, so we won the first set that evening. That was the moment when the fighting spirit of the individuals clicked and became the strength of the team as a unity.
After this moment, the team members opened up more to each other, started giving feedback to each other and support the development of each other to surpass our limits. We played two more games with a similar start like we had with Novartis and both times the team pulled through, fought until we took the win!
We closed the season on the 4th place, which not only means that we have achieved our goal but even ended up in the upper half of the table. This could not have happened without our super coach who analyzed each match, called us together for an individual summary after each match, encouraged us as individuals as well as encouraged us to give and provide feedback to each other. Thank you Marianne for the amazing season, for your support, your push when needed and your encouragements throughout the season. Thanks for forming us into a team whose fighting spirit is definitely number one this season!