(On behalf of the second ladies team, Loes reports)
Last Saturday we had the second game of the season. At our home base, the Pijp, we had the honour to kick-off the evening at 19.00. As always we started strong with some candy in the locker room and we impressed substitute Kimberly with our beautifully sponsored shirts. As a team we decided this season that we were going to win every match (radical new strategy) so to make this happen we flew in a secret weapon. All the way from Norway our latest addition, Amalie, made her debut this match. Ready to go we faced our opponent: Westsite. The young team started off strong against us and poked some holes in our defences. Soon it was 0-3. US2 on the other hand had some difficulty getting the ball in the net. Balls went over, on the post and westside's goalie made some nice saves this match. In the first 15 minutes we scored the impressive amount of 1 goal. But then we remembered our radical new strategy: to win. So we shook our initial nerves and started to focus and play our own game. We made a lot of interceptions which led to many goals from fast breaks. Especially Vera showed her ball-snatching-talents and in the second part of the first half we scored an impressive 11 goals. We went into the break with a small lead.
The next part of the game we just had to keep our lead and try to build on it. Our defence was standing very strong and westside had great difficulty getting through it. Kimberly and her 2m legs on the other hand had no problem of getting launched over the smaller westside girls and slamming the ball in the upper corners of westsides goal. Halfway through the second half we had a little break in scoring, but so did they, and we came back beautifully with a play made by Iris. She created the space and passed the ball effortlessly to the circle who slammed it in the top corner.
Comeback established. And we showed that we can score from teamplays as well as fast breaks. We let go of our lead a little bit in the last minutes because of some saves from the goalie and lack of focus but ended the match satisfied with 21-19.
After winning the first and second half we continued our streak by winning it all-in the third half. Silke's birthday celebrations started strong with beer in the shower and we used the excuse of teambuilding to drink loads of alcohol. Funfact of the night: Kim does a mighty good impression of a slug (naaktslak). On to our next win!