GVK Opens Season 0-2

Series premiers at home for GVK 

Gislaved | Gislaved faces KFUM Göteborg at home in this year's Elite series premiere. 

GVK hosts KFUM Göteborg in the Elite Series premier

“I hope that people are supposed to appear in the hall,” said coach Dick Runesson.  

Dick Runesson enters his fifth season as head coach of GVK. 

A season that looks a bit different than before, which you could read about in Tuesday's newspaper. 

Now waiting for the premiere. A home game. Against Göteborg. One Thursday evening. 

“I expect that it will be a pretty even match. Göteborg is used to playing a strong defense and fight and tear each other properly,” says Runesson and continues: “We will need to have great patience in our attacking game. At the same time, we must also wear down [Göteborg’s defense] significantly. But it only makes us better as a player.”

The final scrimmage was played last Wednesday, which ended with a loss against RIG Falköping 3-1. During the week, the focus is on the defense and how to succeed. 

“I hope our block and defense game starts well, so we get proof of what we train on. It is important to do a good job, in block defense game.”

Gislaved and Göteborg met during the preseason at the Knallecup. It was victory for Gislaved then 2-0 in sets. But there is nothing that Runesson attaches great importance. 

“It has been a while since we met them last month. Both teams have probably gotten better so I do not count much from the preseason game. It is a new Göteborg we can meet.”

Runesson tipped in Värnamo News on Tuesday that Göteborg is ranked last in the league, just after the preseason ranking release. But he's not sure of victory. 

“I hope we will have this in our mind. But one must be aware that the quality of the Elite Series has been increased substantially over the past three-to-four years. In the past, there were teams you were pretty sure it would win, no matter how you played. But Göteborg is a team with quality.”

He hopes, of course, on a lot of people attend the series premiere. 

“I do not know how people think but it is not so often that there is an Elitserien Premiere in Gislaved. So I hope that people will join us in Gisle Hallen.” 

Will you invite Gislaved crowd at a victory? 

“We will invite Gislaved crowd on a good effort, then we will see how long it lasts.

October 16, 2014

Heavy premier loss for GVK 

Sanna Schultz (11), Jollan Åkerlund (7), Mikaela Larsson (2),
Meghan Sherman (lying) fall to KFUM Göteborg 2-3.

It started so well. 

But it was still a loss for Gislaved VK in the series home premiere. 

Final Score: Gislaved 2, KFUM Göteborg 3 (25-21, 25-19, 21-25, 23-25, 12-15) 

Gislaved started the game clearly the best. But it was inconsistent. They led by 4-1, dropped to 5-5. They led by 9-5, dropped to 10-12. Everywhere in the first set. But in the end, they could still win the set after trailing 11-15 to 19-17 and eventually win 25-21. 

It was back-and-forth in set two. But finally Gislaved took an eight point lead. It shrank to six points at the set's end but had Gislaved 2-0 in sets and they would just beat match point in the third set. 

But something happened. Errors started coming. Communication broke down. Gothenburg came into the game. To top it all, you had the referees working against you. 

“They were a distraction”, says team captain Mikaela Larsson. “But we did not lose because of them.”

The third set was lost by just four balls, the fourth with two balls. It was evenly played, that Gislaved saw Gothenburg fix a fifth and deciding set. 

A set that probably went down in history as the longest 5th set. At 4-8 came side-change and then also have a 15 minute long break after computer hassles in the scorers’ table. 

Once the game got underway again Gislaved dropped two balls directly. A time-out was taken and the players began to connect. GVK went on a 6-2 run in the next eight points Then Gothenburg used a timeout. Which obviously worked.

Despite the loss, GVK takes away one-point towards the series. A win on GVK’s part.

“We took the first two sets, which allows us to take a point [in the league],” says Larsson.

Match’s Best Players awarded to: Jollan Åkerlund (Gislaved) and Katarina Bagavac (Göteborg)

Stat Leaders: GVK Sanna Schultz (16 kills, 1 ace), Meghan Sherman (11 kills), Lisa Tannerfalk (4 kills, 4 blocks), Jollan Åkerlund (4 blocks, 1 kill); Göteborg Lisa Westby (15 kills, 2 aces), Ellinor Nilsson (9 kills, 1 block, 4 aces), Alma Skarrie (5 blocks)

October 18, 2014

Runesson: "No cow on ice" 

Second straight loss for Gislaveds VK. But GVK stays positive. 

Final Score: Svedala 3, Gislaved 0 (25-13, 25-16, 25-18)  

It was the second straight loss. And by a large margin. 

But it was what was positive too. 

GVK enters the court against Svedala

“There is no cow on the ice. Slowly but surely we’re moving forward,” said coach Dick Runesson after the loss. 

Sure. GVK kept the pressure on serve in the  final set and got the block-game involved here and there. 

“We made some progress. We are happy with the current situation. The girls and I are in control of what we do and we are on the right track”

GVK was also on track in every set, but in the middle of each set, Svedala broke away and won quite clear. 

“We get a pretty good start on all sets. And after the first set was not the feeling that we lost by 25-13. It felt we were in the match and were more consistent than [the score showed].”

Runesson thought the team did its best game of the season. 

Read more in the Monday paper about which players deserve hats.

Note: “There is no cow on the ice” is a Swedish proverb meaning: there’s nothing to worry about…yet. This is the shortened version of “there is no cow on the ice as long as its behind is still ashore” which makes more sense. No need to panic yet, we still have time.

Match’s Best Players awarded to: Holly Franks (Svedala) and Meghan Sherman (Gislaved)

Stat Leaders: Svedala Holly Franks (19 kills, 2 blocks), Autumn Wedan (13 kills, 2 blocks), Marissa Collins (3 blocks); GVK Meghan Sherman (7 kills, 1 block, 1 ace), Lisa Tannerfalk (2 blocks, 1 kill, 1 ace)