LVBK's January Match Schedule

Ljungby Volleybollklubb has a full month of matches ahead of us during January. Luckily for me, I will have at least one guaranteed fan from home at our first match as my mom is coming to visit me for a few days after wrapping up the New Year’s Bash tour. She will be able to travel with the team and watch me for the first time as a professional volleyball player! I’m really looking forward to showing her around the town and spending more time with her like I got to with my dad while he was here for Thanksgiving – but back to the team.

Current Elite Series Rankings

Our spring opener, because now we are in 2012 and thus we call it the “spring”, will be January 7^th in Svedala. We are currently ranked 8^th in the Elite Series, with a record of 2-7, while Svedala is 10^th with a record of 0-9. We played Svedala at home on November 5^th, defeating them in 3 sets: 25-15, 25-9, 25-15. Svedala is located in the southern part of Sweden, near Malmö, and will take us about 2 hours to get there. We will meet Gislaved (ranked 5^th, record of 5-4) on January 14^th in our home gym. We lost to Gislaved in our season opener on October 15^th: 17-25, 18-25, 25-20, 22-25, and are looking for revenge, as they are our biggest rival. Julle, Malin, and Jassi played for them in the past, and Jocke was once their coach. On January 22^nd, we travel to play against Örebro (ranked 9^th, record of 1-8), about 4 hours north of Ljungby. We defeated Örebro at our place in 4: 25-19, 19-25, 29-27, 25-19. Our final match for the month will be on January 25^th against Hylte/Halmstad (ranked 6^th with a record of 5-4). We lost to them at their place in 5: 26-28, 25-21, 25-22, 23-25, 17-19. We had many possible match points in both the 4^th and 5^th sets, however we were unable to close the match. Hopefully playing on our home court will prove to our advantage against both Hylte and Gislaved and we can pull through with two more home victories.

LVBK's Match Schedule and Results

This winter, we had many illnesses and injuries, and the New Year has been no exception. One of our outside hitters, Lisa, had gotten the flu towards the beginning of December, which turned into double pneumonia and then resulted in her popping on of her ribs out of place and a loss of about 7 kilograms (roughly 15 pounds). She has been on medication and seriously limited by her doctor and is just now able to begin walking and light stationary bike riding. Our Polish middle, Asia, has really injured her knee, and was unable to fix a doctor’s appointment before winter break. She is back in Poland and hopefully is getting her knee looked at; however, we have been informed that she will most likely not be ready to play again until the end of January, pending on the doctor’s findings. Another outside, Malin, who is “always cold” - refer to the Borås Cup Tournament blog for that whole ridiculous story - has managed to have almost 4 colds this winter. This last one has hit especially hard, and she was prescribed penicillin and informed to not practice until she was feeling better. A day after getting checked out by her doctor, this same doctor was fired/quit and Malin was told that this prescription was incorrect for her ailment. Now we are hoping she can train by this weekend, but not expecting her to be back full force until next week. As some players miss trainings, others are required to step up and take over their responsibilities and have done so to the best of their abilities. Many players have been playing new positions, which will hopefully prove to be beneficial as those missing from the team come back and add more depth to our positions.

This month has a lot of promise for LVBK to come out with some W’s. I hope everyone at home can keep their fingers crossed (or “hold your thumbs” as they say in Sweden) and send all the good vibes our way.