On January 25th R’damnit joined the 3rd Indoor Competition this season. With ten players, not only numerical strong, but also with a good mixture between very experienced players and some indoor newcomers, felt R’damnit confident to succeed in the tournament. This time Veneendaal, respectively their team ‘Tigers’ hosted the exciting tournament.
Due the relatively high number of players, the team decided to divide into defense and offense. So after every point won or lost, the whole team would switch. And this tactics turned out to be very effective. R’damnit won the first game against UFO (Utrecht).
Even though the game was balanced during most parts and very intense. Probably as a result of a tough game, there were many pick calls. But in the end R’damnit had the longer breath. Joep scored the final point, which led to the final result of 10:8.
After the first game R’damnit was looking forward to their second challenge that day: Veneedaal Tigers. If there would have been a style award, Veneedaal would have been unstoppable. They got on the court in black-orange tiger dresses. But back to the game: Tigers started by playing ‘zone-defense’, R’damnit had to change their tactics due to an injury of one of their key players. Bas had troubles with his knee, therefor there were no sub teams anymore, but players switched individually. The game was balanced until the score of 6:6, then Veneedaal pulled away and led constantly until the end score of 12:8. One of the Tigers players meant later on, the change from ‘zone’ to ‘man-to-man’ defending made the difference. However it was a high-quality game, where it was visible that Veneedaal had more indoor experience.
The next opponent WAF (Wageningen) seemed beatable, R’damnit won the last games against them. WAF played really organized and started better. They were a few points ahead, until R’damnit caught up with a good end-zone game and a strong defense. In the end WAF was better in terms of endurance. The final score of 7:9 (R’damnit : WAF) came even a bit surprising for WAF, since that was the first time, that they won against R’damnit.
While observing the other matches, R’damnit knew already, that their last game was going to be an enormous challenge. The team Ultimaas (Maastricht) performed very well in all their games and won besides one all of them. Ultimaas made some nice deep-passes, which led to many points in the beginning. They were physically as well as technically strong. In the middle of the game there seemed to be a little chance, that R’damnit could get closer to Ultimaas. R’damnit did its best and had also some good points. Nevertheless Ultimaas won 15:8.
Rotterdam stays in the third division and looks forward to the upcoming tournaments. WAF won the division slightly ahead of Ultimaas. Therefor WAF will try their luck in division 2 next time.
Overall R’damnit enjoyed the good spirit, the exciting games and some taught lessons.
Results Day 3 (3rd Division):
R’damnit – UFO 2 10 – 8
R’damnit – Tigers 8 – 12
R’damnit – WAF 7 – 9
R’damnit – Ultimaas 8 – 15
Final score:
1) WAF
2) Ultimaas
3) Venendaal Tigers
4) R’damnit
5) UFO 2